It’s 2024! Where’s my flying car? So goes the lament of many a 21st century citizen, disappointed that our world does not yet resemble an episode of The Jetsons. Along with personal jetpacks, moon bases, and robot butlers, flying cars have become emblematic of the shiny high-tech future we were promised but which never came to pass. As we’ve covered in our previous video The Mad Race to Create Working, Practical Personal Jetpacks, in many cases the problem is technological – current jet and rocket engines are simply too heavy and thirsty – and their fuels too bulky or flesh-meltingly dangerous – to safely strap to your back. In other cases the problem is a lack of political will. Until very recently, only national governments had the resources to send humans into space, and since the end of the Apollo program in 1972 there has been little political appetite for moon bases despite the technology being readily available. Finally, in some cases the problem is economic: the technology is there, but the cost is too high or the potential customers too few to make it commercially viable. In the case of flying cars, technological, political, and economic factors all conspired to prevent these vehicles from making their way into every garage – at least for the time being. But this failure was certainly not for lack of trying, as hundreds of innovators from backyard tinkerers to major engineering firms have struggled for more than a century to make the dream of a personal flying machine a reality. This is the story of the strange and often ingenious 100-year quest to create a practical flying car.

For nearly as long as cars and aeroplanes have existed, inventors have been trying to combine the two. The early allure of flying cars makes sense when one considers the state of both ground and air transport in the early 20th century. Back then, road networks were nowhere near as extensive or high-quality as they are today, with most paved roads being found within only a few kilometres of major cities. Beyond this, most roads were rough, deeply-rutted dirt tracks that could defeat even the sturdiest of auto suspensions. Aircraft, by contrast, only needed a relatively flat grass field to operate. With a flying car, as an April 1917 issue of Popular Mechanics explained, a motorist could:

“…start from his garage or hangar, travel streets or roads at will, cross streams or lakes that lie in his path, rise in the air and fly over a hill, a valley, or woods, to another road, all at his pleasure.”

Furthermore, flying cars would provide the aerial commuter with a convenient means of driving from the airport into town for a business meeting, a spot of lunch, or a bit of shopping. The possibilities were endless.

But making this idyllic vision a reality proved a daunting task, for the design requirements for ground and air vehicles are wildly different. For one thing, cars use heavy drivetrains and require a minimum weight for handling and safety reasons, while aircraft must be as light as possible for maximum performance. Reconciling these contradictory requirements within a single convenient vehicle is, to say the least, a major engineering challenge.

One of the first innovators to seriously tackle this problem was American aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, who in 1917 patented a design he dubbed the Autoplane. The vehicle featured a three-seat cabin enclosed in a lightweight, streamlined aluminium body and mounted on four aircraft-style wheels. To this were mounted the triplane wings from a Curtiss Model L trainer, a twin-boom tail, and a four-bladed propeller in pusher configuration. A 100 horsepower Curtiss OXX V8 engine drove either the wheels or the propeller through a system of shafts and belts. Once the combination landed, the wings and tail could be detached and the cabin driven around like a normal car.

In February 1917, the Curtiss exhibited the Autoplane at the Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition in New York City, where the unusual vehicle caused a sensation. As the New York Times wrote:

“More wonderful than the Rodman Wanamaker Flying Boat “AMERICA”, more interesting than the huge military planes is this unique and novel product of the inventive genius of Glenn H. Curtiss, — The Curtiss ‘Aerial Limousine.’  Since its unveiling on Thursday night at the Aero Show it has been the talk of New York.  Epoch making in its conception and design, this wonderful aeroplane is a veritable drawing room on wings, a modern magic couch which can actually whisk you away with the speed of the wind.  We urge you to see it before the Show closes next Thursday.”

Unfortunately, the Autoplane failed to live up to such breathless hype. In flight tests the vehicle proved too heavy and underpowered and only managed to make a few short hops off the ground. While Curtiss was confident these issues could be resolved, America’s entry into the First World War in April 1917 intervened, and the Autoplane project was scrapped so Curtiss could focus on producing training aircraft for the war effort. Thus ended the first serious attempt to build a practical flying car. Yet despite its failure, the Autoplane nonetheless set the pattern for nearly all that was to come. With a few notable exceptions, nearly every flying car developed since 1917 has followed the same general design: a lightweight cabin with powered wheels to which wings, a tail, and a propeller can be attached. However, as most of these designs require the wings and tail to be left behind at the airport or be towed along in a special trailer, such vehicles somewhat stretch the definition of “flying car” and are more accurately termed roadable aircraft.

If one further stretches the definition of “flying car”, then the next major development in our story came in 1926, spearheaded by none other than automobile magnate Henry Ford. The year before, the Ford Motor Company had created its own aviation division by buying out the Detroit-based Stout Metal Airplane Company. The division’s first product was the Ford Trimotor, a small transport aircraft built of corrugated aluminium and capable of carrying 11 passengers. Extremely robust and reliable, the Trimotor was an instant success, with nearly 200 being purchased by airlines, militaries, and other operators around the world. The aircraft gained lasting fame in 1929 when Admiral Richard Byrd used one to make the first flight over the South Pole.

Buoyed by this success, in 1926 Ford announced the development of a tiny single-seat aircraft which, he claimed, would bring aviation “within the reach of every man’s pocketbook” just as the Ford Model T had done for the automobile. The aircraft was designed by engineer Otto Koppen, who took over the project after William Stout and William Mayo, heads of the aviation division, refused to have anything to do with the aircraft. According to legend, Ford demanded that the aircraft fit inside his office and gave Koppen only a few months to complete the design. Despite these challenging requirements, Koppen persevered, delivering the first prototype in time for its unveiling on July 30, 1926 – Henry Ford’s 63rd birthday.

Dubbed the “Flivver” after the 1920s slang for the Ford Model T, the aircraft, built of steel tube and wood covered in fabric, measured 4 metres long had a wingspan of 7 metres, and weighed only 227 kilograms. Powered by a 36 horsepower 3-cylinder Anzani radial engine, the Flivver could achieve a maximum speed of 140 kilometres per hour and a range of nearly 1600 kilometres. Innovative features included a retractable, steerable tailwheel with a brake for easier taxiing and full-length “flaperons” on the wings to generate extra lift and allow the Flivver to take off and land in confined areas. Indeed, in one demonstration the Flivver began its takeoff run at the back of a hangar and was airborne by the time it reached the door. The price of a Flivver was set at $37,000 – around $65,500 in today’s money – but was expected to drop to $28,000 after the first 100 machines were sold.

As with the Curtiss Autoplane a decade before, the unveiling of the Ford Flivver stirred the public’s imagination, with Popular Science speculating:

“Today events in the realm of aviation are tumbling along at such a pace that we can almost imagine ourselves spending next summer’s vacation touring the air roads…How soon we shall fly our own machines depends, experts agree, on how quickly foolproof machines can capture public confidence. Once that confidence has been gained and public demand created, quantity production and lower prices will be possible. The wonderful history of the automobile will be repeated in the air.”

The romantic allure of personal air transport even inspired a New York Evening Sun columnist to publish a short poem:

I dreamed I was an angel

And with the angels soared

But I was simply touring

The heavens in a Ford.

Meanwhile, Henry Ford assured the awestruck public that the Flivver was only the beginning, and that true flying cars equally suited to highway and skyway were just around the corner:

“Mark my word. A combination airplane and motor car is coming. You may smile. But it will come.”

But first, Ford had to turn the Flivver into a viable product – no small task given its steep price tag. To help promote his everyman’s aircraft, Ford turned to Harry J. Brooks, his chief test pilot. Brooks immediately fell in love with the Flivver, and began regularly using it to commute between his home and work and even around the Ford campus as one might use a car or motorcycle. Brooks also flew dozens of public demonstration flights with the Flivver and even raced Garfield Wood’s record-breaking motorboat Miss America V during the 1926 Harmsworth Cup in Detroit. Of the aircraft, he opined:

“Flying a plane like this is no more difficult than flying a large plane, except in this plane the pilot has to think a little faster.”

In August 1927, Henry Ford invited Charles Lindbergh – whose recent solo transatlantic flight had made him an international superstar – to try out the Flivver. Though Ford hoped to capitalize on Lindbergh’s fame to promote his new product, “Lucky Lindy’s” assessment was not quite what he expected, with the famous aviator declaring the Flivver to be among worst aircraft he had ever flown.

Undaunted, on January 24, 1928 Harry Brooks set out to demonstrate the Flivver’s impressive range by flying nonstop from Detroit to Miami. Unfortunately bad weather forced him to put down in Asheville, North Carolina. Still, he had plenty of fuel left in the tank, and once the weather cleared he flew on without incident to Miami. On February 21, Brooks tried again, Though this time he landed some 320 kilometres short in Titusville, Florida, he succeeded in setting a world distance record for light aircraft of 1,564 kilometres. After repairing his propeller, which was damaged in the landing, set off again on February 25. It was then that disaster struck. While circling the shore near Melbourne, Florida, Brooks’s engine quit and the Flivver plunged into the ocean, killing him instantly. While several pieces of wreckage eventually washed ashore, Brooks’s body was never found. Examination of the wreckage soon revealed the cause of the crash: while repairing the Flivver in Titusville, Brooks had placed toothpicks in the fuel tank cap vent holes to prevent moisture from entering and condensing overnight. He had then forgotten to remove the toothpicks, starving the engine of fuel.

News of Brooks’s death devastated Henry Ford, who had become close friends with the young pilot. Though Ford was quick to assure investors that the crash would not affect his company’s aviation activities, his guilt soon overwhelmed him, and he cancelled the Flivver and all other light aircraft development. By this time, only three Flivver prototypes had been built; today, only a single example of the “Model T of the Skies” survives, on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford briefly returned to the light aircraft market in the 1930s with the development of the Stout Sky Car and the Ford Model 15-P, the latter being a particularly innovative “flying wing” design with no vertical tail surfaces. However, when the prototype 15-P crashed during testing, Ford once again cancelled the project. The Ford Motor Company would not re-enter the aviation industry until 1940, when it began construction of the enormous Willow Run manufacturing complex in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Sprawling over nearly 300,000 square metres and staffed by 42,500 workers, at peak capacity Willow Run was capable of completing an entire Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour – but that, dear viewer, is a story for another time.

With industrial giants like the Ford Motor Company out of the race, it fell to small-time tinkerers to pursue the elusive dream of a practical flying car. Among the most promising designs to come out of the 1930s was the Waterman Arrowbile, designed by San Diego inventor Waldo Waterman. Obsessed with aviation from a young age, Waterman was only 16 when in 1910 he flew – and promptly crashed – his own homebuilt aircraft, breaking both his ankles in the process. Disqualified from enlisting in the armed forces, Waterman spent the First World War at the School of Military Aeronautics at the University of California Berkeley, teaching the Theory of Flight. Like many early aviation pioneers, Waterman soon recognized the aerodynamic shortcomings of traditional aircraft designs and came up with a design for a highly-efficient tailless aircraft with swept wings, a pusher propeller, and tricycle landing gear. After years of struggling to make his vision a reality, in Waterman finally succeeded in building a low-wing prototype which he dubbed the “Whatsit.” But while the design flew, it proved very unstable and crashed multiple times during testing.

In 1934, however, the United States Bureau of Air Commerce announced a contest to develop a safe and reliable light aircraft that cost less than $700 – around $16,500 today. In response, Waterman created a high-wing version of the Whatsit which he dubbed the “Arrowplane.” That same year, three Arrowbiles set off on a long-distance demonstration flight from Santa Monica, California to Washington DC. One aircraft broke down and had to turn back, but the other two reached their destination and were declared the winners of the contest. Despite this, however, the Bureau of Air Commerce’s quest for an “air flivver” went nowhere, as no company was able to get the price of their entries anywhere near the $700 requirement. Indeed, while LIFE magazine listed the price of the Arrowplane at $3000, the real figure was closer to $7000 – an eye-watering sum in the depths of the Great Depression.

Hoping to make his design more versatile, Waterman modified the Arrowplane by making the wings detachable and fitting the fuselage with a Studebaker engine that could drive both the wheels and the propeller. The resulting roadable aircraft, dubbed the “Arrowbile”, first flew on February 21, 1937. Waterman spared no expense promoting his invention to the American public. Footage of the Arrowbile taking off, landing, shedding its wings and driving away was featured in newsreels shown across the country, while the unusual vehicle was profiled in the then-brand new LIFE Magazine and other major publications. Waterman also issued countless press releases and ran full-page magazine ads with major corporate sponsors like Sunoco Oil. But perhaps his most brilliant publicity stunt was a photo staged for the Associated Press wirephoto service, showing a traffic cop pulling over an Arrowbile driver for speeding. It was an image which perfectly captured the future envisioned by Waterman and other aerial innovators: a future in which flying cars were as ubiquitous and mundane as any other vehicle on the road.

Alas, it was not to be. Thanks to its exorbitant cost and the crash of three prototypes en route to the New York Air Show, the Arrowbile failed to find customers and Waterman’s investors pulled out one by one. After the Second World War Waterman tried again, producing a similar roadable car slightly renamed to the “aerobile” which used many standard parts from Studebaker, Ford, Willys, and other cars to reduce its cost. But this, too, failed to attract buyers, and the whole venture soon folded. The sole surviving Waterman Aerobile is preserved at the National Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Centre in Chantilly, Virginia.

But while the vast majority of historical flying cars have been conventional fixed-wing designs, for a brief period in the 1930s it seemed as though a completely different – and today rarely-encountered – type of aircraft would finally make the dream of personal air transport a reality: the autogiro. As covered in our previous video An Incredibly Deep Dive Into the Fascinating Invention of the Helicopter, the autogiro was the brainchild of Spanish inventor Juan de la Cierva, and represented a transitional phase between fixed-wing-aircraft and true helicopters. Unlike in helicopters, the rotor on an autogiro is not powered; rather, the aircraft is driven by a regular engine and propeller and the rotor is spun by the airflow over it – that is, it autogyrates. And while early autogiros featured short wings and aircraft-style control surfaces, Cierva eventually perfected cyclic and collective control whereby the aircraft could be directly maneuvered by varying the angle of the rotor blades. This technological breakthrough would later prove vital to the development of true helicopters.

Compared to regular aircraft, autogiros were considerably more maneuverable and could take off and land over extremely short distances; indeed, in later models the rotor could be temporarily connected to the engine with a clutch to achieve near-vertical takeoffs. They were also extremely safe, for in the case of an engine failure the aircraft simply autogyrated to a soft landing. These unique properties led to autogiros being used in all sorts of unique applications. Forestry services used them for spotting forest fires and navies for reconnaissance and hunting submarines, and salesmen for major companies like Wrigley’s gum flew autogiros from town to town to hawk their wares. Newspapers like the The Detroit News and the Des Moines Register bought autogiros to whisk reporters to the scene of breaking news stories, while in Philadelphia mail-carrying autogiros performed experimental takeoffs and landings from the roof of the newly-built post office building. The ever-adaptable autogiro, it seemed, could do anything – including, many believed, become the long-sought-after “Model T of the skies”.

The most enthusiastic purveyor of this vision was one Harold Pitcairn, whose Pennsylvania-based Pitcairn Aircraft Company owned the U.S. manufacturing rights for Cierva autogiros. Throughout the early 1930s, Pitcairn – later the Autogiro Company of America – aggressively pushed autogiros like its PA-18 Tandem Sports Model as the ultimate commuter vehicle for the well-to-do, publishing richly-illustrated ads depicting members of the leisure set rolling their personal autogiros out of private hangars and flying off to tennis courts, golf courses, and hunting lodges. It was an idyllic, carefree vision, free of the hassle and frustration of ordinary road traffic. It was also a tantalizingly achievable one, as demonstrated by a memorable incident in 1930 when Pitcairn test pilot James G. Ray was forced to land due to a violent storm. But rather than stay put as with a normal aircraft, Ray simply folded back his rotors and kept motoring down the highway until the weather had cleared sufficiently for him to take off again. If that didn’t fit the definition of a practical flying car, nothing did. Indeed, so captivated was the public by the autogiro that in 1931 Harold Pitcairn was awarded the prestigious Collier Trophy by President Herbert Hoover for his role in bringing this revolutionary technology to the United States. The ceremony, attended by such luminaries as Orville Wright, climaxed when a Pitcairn autogiro, piloted by James Ray, fluttered down from the sky and touched down lightly on the White House Lawn.

But as with so many innovators before and since, Pitcairn’s dream of putting an autogiro in every garage was sadly not to be. For while autogiros were certainly safer than fixed-winged aircraft, they were still tricky to fly even for experienced pilots; indeed, no less an aviator than Amelia Earhart crashed twice. They were also prohibitively expensive, with Pitcairn’s model PA-18 retailing for $5000 – nearly $118,000 today. These safety issues, combined with the worsening effects of the Great Depression, forced Pitcairn to withdraw from the Autogiro market in 1933. Just a few years later, however, the US Bureau of Air Commerce contracted Pitcairn to build a roadable aircraft based on its PA-22 autogiro. The resulting vehicle, dubbed the AC-35, was built of tubular steel covered in fabric and featured an enclosed two-seat cockpit, twin powered steerable front wheels, and a 90-horsepower Pubjoy Cascade 7-cylinder radial engine that could power both the front wheels and a front-mounted two-blade propeller. In October 1936, James Ray performed a dramatic public demonstration by landing the prototype in a Washington, DC park, folding back the rotors, and driving the vehicle through the streets of the nation’s capital to the doors of the Department of Commerce building. But as should come as no surprise by now, nothing came of the Government’s roadable aircraft initiative, and the AC-35 was never commercially manufactured. The sole prototype now resides at the Udvar-Hazy Centre, very close to its contemporary, the Waterman Aerobile.

The outbreak of the Second World War brought an end to commercial flying car development, though some research on flying military vehicles was conducted. Among the most unusual was the Hafner Rotabuggy, developed by the British Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment or AFEE. The aim of the project was to allow military vehicles like jeeps and even light tanks to be dropped into combat without the use of parachutes. The vehicles would be fitted with rotors and a tail fin assembly and towed to the drop zone by a transport aircraft or heavy bomber. The vehicle would then be released and glide to a soft landing, whereupon the rotors and tail assembly would be jettisoned. Despite some early teething problems, the Rotabuggy proved surprisingly effective, being highly stable and easy to control. However, by the time the vehicle was ready for production, the introduction of heavy-lift assault gliders like the Airspeed Horsa and General Aircraft Hamilcar rendered the concept redundant and the project was cancelled.

The end of the Second World War brought about a renaissance in flying car development. Indeed, if there was ever a “golden age” for flying cars, it was the years 1945-1955, during which the combination of boundless postwar optimism and recent advances in aviation and manufacturing technology created the perfect conditions for such ambitious flights of fancy. As in the 1930s, most of the flying car designs produced during this period took the form of fixed-wing roadable aircraft, differing mainly in how the wings, tail, and propeller attached to the body and how they were stored or transported during ground travel. For example, the Fulton FA-2 Airphibian, introduced by inventor Robert Edison Fulton Jr. in November 1946, featured a streamlined two-seat cabin with four engine-driven aircraft-style wheels and a three-bladed tractor propeller, which could be converted to flight mode in as little as 45 minutes by latching on a combination wing and tail assembly. But while Fulton managed to get the type certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration – the first flying car to be so recognized – he soon ran out of money and was forced to relinquish control of his company to his investors – who declined to pursue the project further. Today, only one of the original four prototypes survives, preserved in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. Robert Fulton, meanwhile, would move on to even more spectacular projects – most notably the Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System or “Skyhook”, used to recover downed pilots and secret agents from enemy territory during the Cold War – and for more on this spectacularly awesome invention, please check out our previous video The Real Story of Capturing an Ice Fortress With a Badass James Bond Film Device.

But while the Airphibian was a safe and reliable enough design, it suffered from one fundamental flaw: the wing and tail unit had to be left behind at the airfield, meaning the vehicle could not be used for multi-stop cross-country trips. Other designers tackled this problem in various ways. For example, the colourfully-named Whittaker-Zuck Planemobile, introduced 1947 by California-based designer Daniel R. Zuck, featured high-mounted wings that could be folded back to lie flat atop the fuselage, protecting them from damage during road use. Zuck, an aerospace engineer who worked for various companies including Consolidated and Lockheed aircraft, believed that roadable aircraft were the logical next step in automobile design, writing:

“Your automobile is a low flying airplane. Let’s take the car off the road and fly where flying is safe–in the wide blue yonder! …since the modern car has slavishly imitated the plane in everything except the wings, let’s put wings on it and make it fully functional.”

As we shall see, Zuck’s assessment of the realities of transportation safety were more than a little off the mark…

Other roadable aircraft designs from this period solved the wing and tail storage problems by mounting these components on a special trailer that could be towed behind the main cabin. One notable design which used this approach was the Taylor Aerocar, introduced in 1949 by Washington-based inventor Moulton Taylor. While on a road trip to the East Coast in 1946, Taylor encountered Robert Fulton’s Airphibian and immediately recognized the shortcomings of its non-transportable wing-and-tail unit. Believing he could do better, Taylor quit his job at a government military laboratory, later stating that:

“I just decided not to spend the rest of my life making things to kill people. My dream is to look up and see the sky black with Aerocars — and I’m sure that will happen someday.”

Like the Airphibian, the Aerocar was converted to flight mode by attaching a combination wing and tail assembly. However, once on the ground, the wings could be folded back and a set of wheels lowered, allowing the whole combination to be towed behind the cabin. Taylor also mounted the propeller at the rear of the tail boom in pusher configuration so it did not have to be removed when the vehicle was in road configuration. The drive shaft for the propeller was connected to the engine via an accessory coupling hidden beneath the rear license plate. In testing, the vehicle exhibited a top ground speed of 96 kilometres per hour and a top airspeed of 176 kilometres per hour.

After getting the Aerocar certified by the CAA in 1956, Taylor brokered a deal with industrial conglomerate Ling-Temco-Vought to manufacture the vehicle if he could obtain 500 orders. Unfortunately, he only managed to secure half that number, and the Aerocar went the way of every other roadable aircraft projects. In total, six prototypes were produced spanning three different versions. Several of these vehicles went on to have colourful careers, with one being flown by Portland, Oregon radio station KISN 910 AM as a traffic watch aircraft and another being purchased by actor Bob Cummings and featured on his 1960s sitcom The Bob Cummings Show. Today, four of the original prototypes survive. One is on display at the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and another at the Museum of Flight in Seattle; one is in storage in Oregon, and the fourth is maintained in flyable condition at the Kissimmee Air Museum in Florida.

While most postwar roadable aircraft were small-scale, backyard garage-type endeavours, at least one such project was pursued by a major aerospace firm and came tantalizingly close to becoming commercially viable: the Convair Model 118. In 1945, engineer Theodore P. Hall left his job at San Diego-based aircraft manufacturer Consolidated Vultee – later renamed Convair – to pursue his dream of creating a practical flying car. Together with fellow engineer Tom Thompson, Hall created the first prototype in his garage by hammering aluminium sheets over a steel tube frame. Unlike earlier designs, which used the same engine to power the wheels and propeller, Hall’s flying car used a 25 horsepower Crosley air-cooled engine on the ground and a 90 horsepower 4-cylinder Franklin engine in the air. The latter was mounted in a streamlined pod mounted to the vehicle’s roof, driving a two-bladed propeller in tractor configuration. To this was mounted a pair of wings and a tail boom with cruciform tail surfaces. Supported by wheeled, telescoping struts, the wing, tail, and engine assembly could be installed or removed from the main car body in as little as six minutes.

The Hall Flying Automobile first flew on July 12, 1946, the flight being extensively profiled in an issue of Popular Science. After a production deal with Portable Products of Garland, Texas, fell through, Ted Hall approached his former employer Convair, who immediately bought out his company and moved the project to their main plant at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field. So enthusiastic was Convair about the project that they even bought out the Stinson Aircraft Company to develop and market its new flying car. Within a year, the company had refined Hall’s original design to produce the Convair 118 ConvairCar, which made its maiden flight on November 1, 1947. Unlike Hall’s prototype, the Model 118 featured a lightweight fibreglass body and a more powerful 190 horsepower Lycoming O-435C flat six engine in the wing pod, allowing the vehicle to reach a maximum airspeed of 200 kilometres an hour.

Convair priced the Model 118 at a somewhat reasonable $1500 – around $21,000 in today’s money. However, this only covered the main car body – the wings, engine, and tail assembly was sold separately. As with the Fulton Airphibian and other, this assembly could not be towed or otherwise transported by road; instead, Convair planned to store these units at airports across the country and rent them out to Model 118 users on a one-way per-flight basis. Predicted sales for the flying car totalled 160,000 units.

But then, just before the Model 118 was set to go on sale, disaster struck. On November 18, 1947, Convair test pilot Reuben Snodgrass was performing a one-hour demonstration flight when he suddenly ran out of fuel and was forced to make an emergency landing on a dirt road outside San Diego. Though Snodgrass was unhurt, the landing destroyed the car body and severely damaged the wings. It was later revealed that Snodgrass had accidentally taken off with very little fuel in the tank; though he had checked the fuel gauge before takeoff, this turned out to be the gauge for the car half of the vehicle, not the aircraft engine. Whoopsie-doodle! Unfortunately for Convair, the negative publicity surrounding the crash soured the public on the Model 118. The project was soon canceled, and with it died the brief postwar heyday of the flying car. If a major aircraft manufacturer like Convair couldn’t make the concept work – so the reasoning went – then nobody could.

But there were other factors behind the flying car’s ignoble demise. For one thing, the end of the War flooded the market with cheap military-surplus aircraft – against which expensive, exotic new vehicles like the Convair 118 simply couldn’t compete. But, more importantly, the mid-1950s saw the construction of the interstate highway system, a vast network of paved, multi-lane freeways criss-crossing the contiguous United States from coast-to-coast. No longer did long-distance motorists need to brave crude, poorly-maintained country roads – the very problem flying cars were designed to solved. In the golden age of Route 66 and the Great American Road Trip, where gas was cheap and motels, diners, and other roadside services plentiful, the flying car became an anachronism, and the dream of a personal flying machine in every garage slowly faded from the public imagination.

But the dream never really died, and over the following decades a few dedicated entrepreneurs carried on the quest to develop a practical, commercially-viable flying car. One attempt was the AVE Mizar, developed in 1973 by California-based entrepreneurs Henry Smolinski and Harold Blake, graduates of the Northrop Institute of Technology who had worked as engineers for North American Aviation and Rocketdyne. Unlike most previous roadable aircraft designs, Smolinski and Blake’s concept did not use a custom-built, lightweight car body but rather mated the wing, engine, and tail unit from a Cessna Skymaster light aircraft to a nearly stock commercial vehicle – in this case, a Ford Pinto. Yes, that Ford Pinto. Like the Convair 118, the AVE Mizar was designed to the car’s original engine on the ground and the Cessna’s engine in the air, though in practice both were used together on takeoff to improve acceleration.

By late 1973, plans were underway to establish a chain of AVE Mizar dealerships across the United States. But building a flying car out of a Pinto turned out to be as cursed as it sounds, for on September 11, 1973 the prototype crashed with Smolinski and Blake at the controls, killing both men instantly. However, the crash had nothing to do with the Pinto’s infamously volatile fuel tank, and was instead traced to faulty welds and the vehicle being overweight, which caused one of the wings to buckle mid-flight. Just like that, the AVE Mizar quickly faded into aviation obscurity.

But while the AVE Mizar stuck firmly to the tried-and-tested roadable aircraft design, another design conceived around the same time went in the complete opposite direction, completely redefining how a flying car should look and operate. The Moller M400 Skycar, the brainchild of Canadian engineer and entrepreneur Peter Moller, looks like almost nothing that came before. Somewhat resembling a speeder from one of the Star Wars prequels, the Skycar features a streamlined body with a bubble canopy, from which protrude two sets of extremely short wings. At the ends of these are four hollow “pods” housing ducted fans, each powered by a 102 horsepower Wankel rotary engine. These pods can rotate up and down, deflecting the airflow and giving the Skycar vertical takeoff and landing or VTOL capability. Once in level flight, the Skycar’s specially-shaped fuselage generates lift, adding to the vehicle’s aerodynamic efficiency. And if all this wasn’t enough, the Skycar is designed to be semi-autonomous, requiring little direct control input from the operator. Instead, the operator simply inputs general flight instructions and an onboard computer and fly-by-wire system takes care of the rest. It is, in other words, everything a flying car should be.

But if this sounds too good to be true for a vehicle conceived in the 1970s…that’s because it is. For despite being in development for over 50 years and absorbing nearly $100 million in investments, the prototype has only ever performed a handful of short, tethered hovering tests. As a result, in 2003 the United States Securities and Exchange Commission sued Moller International for civil fraud, claiming that the company had deliberately misled its investors – and the public at large – as to the capabilities and status of its products. Moller settled the suit by paying a $50,000 fine to the SEC, but further financial difficulties forced him to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Finally, in 2019, Moller International ceased operations. As of this recording the company remains dormant, having never manufactured a single production vehicle or even conducted a free flight test.

Meanwhile, several other companies have pursued various approaches to creating a viable personal flying machine. For example, the Super Sky Cycle, introduced in 2009 by The Butterfly Aircraft LLC of Aurora, Texas, is a small homebuilt autogiro with two engines: one to drive a propeller in flight and one to drive the tricycle wheels on the ground. Due to its light weight – only 340 kg – the Super Sky Cycle can be legally registered as a motocycle and an ultralight aircraft, making it more accessible to the average user. Other designs, like the Parajet Skycar and the Maverick Flying Dunebuggy operate on the powered parachute principle, consisting of a dune buggy or ATV-like vehicle with a propeller which can deploy a controllable parafoil for flight.

However, perhaps the most advanced flying cars currently in development are those produced by Terrafugia. Founded in Woburn, Massachusetts in 2006 by students from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronauts and the Sloan School of Management at MIT, in July 2017 the company was purchased by the Chinese Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, owners of the Volvo and Lotus automotive brands. In 2006, Terrafugia unveiled the Transition, a prototype light roadable aircraft. Like most mid-century flying car designs, the Transition features a streamlined two-seat cabin and small, aircraft-style wheels. However, the airframe makes extensive use of modern materials like carbon fibre to reduce weight and improve performance, while the twin-boom tail unit does not detach for road use as in earlier designs. Instead, the wings automatically fold up against the sides of the fuselage, allowing the vehicle to fit into most standard garages. Powered by a 100 horsepower Rotax 912 four-cylinder engine, the Transition can reach a maximum groundspeed of 110 kilometres per hour – allowing it to keep up with regular traffic – and a maximum airspeed of 172 kilometres per hour.

The Transition made its maiden flight on March 5, 2009, and received its airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Authority – successors to the CAA – in June 2018. However, in February 2021, before a single production model was delivered, the company laid off most of its employees and shut down its North American operations, announcing its intention to move production to China. But the Transition was just the beginning, for in 2013 Terrafugia unveiled an even more advanced design that comes closer to the platonic ideal of a flying car than nearly anything that has come before. Known as the TF-X, the vehicle is, remarkably, a plug-in hybrid, powered by a pair of 600 horsepower electric motors for ground driving and flight cruise and a single 300 horsepower gasoline engine for takeoff and landing. Styled rather like the flying time machine Delorean from the Back to the Future movies, the TF-X will deploy a pair of short wings tipped by engine pods and six-bladed rotors, which can tilt upwards to provide thrust for vertical takeoff and landing. In level flight, cruise thrust is provided by a ducted fan in the rear of the fuselage. According to Terrafugia, the vehicle will be able to seat four passengers, fit in most standard garages, fly up to 800 kilometres at 322 kilometres per hour on a single charge, and will cost approximately $300,000 apiece. However, given the many, many examples of broken promises and unjustified hype we have encountered throughout this video, it is perhaps best to take these claims with a grain of salt…

What is certain, however, is that recent advances in technology are bringing us ever closer to a world where flying cars might actually become viable – and government regulators and other agencies are taking notice. For example, in 2004 the FAA introduced the Light Sport Aircraft designation, which allows aircraft with a gross weight of up to 600 kilograms to be operated by pilots with significantly less training and experience than for more conventional light aircraft. This designation is tailor-made for roadable aircraft like the Terrafugia Transition, and many such vehicles have been built specifically to fit within the Light Sport Aircraft definition. And in April 2009, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA put out a call for proposals for a four-passenger vehicle capable of both off-road travel and VTOL flight. Known as DARPA TX or Transformer, the initiative was an attempt to provide US troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other war zones with the capability to avoid rough terrain, improvised explosive devices, and other hazards on the battlefield – in other words, a flying Humvee. Dozens of defence contractors submitted entries, with nearly $8 million in development contracts being awarded to AAI Corp, Lockheed Martin, Rocketdyne, and Pratt and Whitney before the project was ultimately cancelled in 2013. Dozens more flying car projects are currently in the works for both civilian and military use.

But even if these initiatives succeed in producing a vehicle that is practical, reliable, and – most challenging of all – affordable, said vehicle will still have one major achilles heel, one which has plagued the very concept of flying cars from the very beginning: the driver. Every year in the United States alone, there are around 40,000 automotive collisions, resulting in some 43,000 deaths – this despite the fact that drivers only have to contend with navigating two spatial dimensions. Add another dimension, and needing everyone to become experts on weather as every pilot knows is one of the most critical facets of being a good pilot, and that number is likely to soar. For contrary to what Daniel Zuck, designer of the 1940s-era Whittaker-Zuck Planemobile, would have you believe, the skies are not safer for the average commuter than the roads; there is a good reason that becoming a pilot requires significantly more training – and money – than earning a driver’s license. Indeed, along with the prohibitive cost of the vehicles themselves, this gap in skills and cost between operating a car and an aircraft is the primary reason flying cars have failed to take off – pun intended – despite more than a century of development. There simply aren’t enough potential customers with the skills or money to operate both types of vehicles. And really, that’s a good thing; if ever you find yourself thinking that flying cars are a good idea, just imagine your average rush-hour traffic jam…but in the sky, where even the slightest collision is likely to end in fiery death and destruction. And, again, that’s not even discussing the weather factor which is how most even well trained private pilots get themselves killed.

But all is not lost, for another, surprisingly seasoned technology may hold the key to making flying cars a viable reality: automation. Paradoxically, while flying through the air is significantly harder for humans than driving around on flat roads, for computers the opposite is true. Indeed, since as far back as the 1970s, many commercial aircraft have been capable of taking off, navigating to their destination, and landing automatically with little to no input from the pilot and those systems have only gotten vastly more robust since. Combined with sophisticated radar transponder systems to keep vehicles safely spaced apart and within designated air lanes, such automated guidance systems could eliminate the unpredictable human factor altogether and allow commuters to fly swiftly and safely to their destination of choice without ever having to earn a pilot’s license or touch the controls. Indeed, such capability has already been incorporated into the base design of many current flying car projects like the Terrafugia TF-X, while a 2019 Blue Paper by Morgan Stanley Research predicts that the autonomous urban aircraft market could become a $1.5 trillion market by 2040. And while no such infrastructure has yet been constructed, with any luck flying cars may soon become one of the few features of our imagined Jetsons future to actually become a reality. Now, if someone could get working on an actual robot maid, that would be phenomenal; my Roomba’s stuck on the stairs again, and if cooking and cleaning could be taken off my plate? The sky’s the limit.

Expand for References