Last updated on October 8th, 2023 at 02:25 am
The first flying car in the world was invented by Henry Smolinski in 1973, called the AVE Mizar, a hybrid vehicle made by attaching wings and a rear stabilizer to a Ford Pinto.
A flying car is a type of car that can work on both personal vehicles and aircraft. Imagine you got stuck in a traffic jam. You instantly took off on the spot and flew away with your car like a crow. Then you landed in a secluded spot at or near your destination.
It seems unbelievable now, but this will definitely happen in the near future. You can be relying on a long runway to land at work.
For many years, people have been trying to build a car that can fly in the sky and anyone can maintain it like an automobile. Let’s learn together about the details of the history of flying cars.
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Early attempts at building the First Flying Car
There have been so many attempts to build a car that can fly after the invention of cars. Some of the mention able shots are here.
Henson Aerial Steam Carriage
In 1841 William Samuel Henson and John String fellow patented the first flying car. It was before the Wright brothers. It had a theoretical wingspan of 150 feet. But they never built the functional version of their monoplane.
The first patent for a flying car
In 1910, John Emory Harriman filed the first patent for the flying car, but that car was never built.
Curtiss Auto plane
Glenn Curtiss was the attempt to build the flying car for the first time. In 1917, it was displayed in public at New York’s 1917 Pan-American Aeronautical Exposition. He called the father of the flying car. He used aluminum to build the body, plastic windows, and a heater for passengers. There were three wings of the Auto plane that could span about 40 feet and had a four-bladed propeller at the rear. That car never flew but only managed to have a few short hops. It was the early creation of the automobile with wings.
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Tampier Roadable biplane
After four years of Curtiss Autoplane, The Tampier Avion-Automobile was a French roadable aircraft designed and built by René Tampier in 1921. This automobile took a 2-hour drive from the Paris Air Salon at 15 mph.
Pitcairn PCA-2
In the early 1930s, Harold F. Pitcairn’s PCA-2 was built in the United States. It was the first autogyro design sold in the market in quantities.
Sky flivver
In 1926, an experimental single-seat airplane was displayed by Henry Ford. It was called the sky flivver. It was never an actual flying car at all. But it came in front of the media and got vast attention. After two years, this project was abandoned when the flight attempt crashed, and the pilot was killed.
Arrowbile
In 1937 Waldo Waterman developed a hybrid Studebaker-aircraft, and he named it the Arrowbile. He modified a 6-cylinder upright and 100 hp Studebaker to build this flying car with a propeller attached to the rear. The wings of this air car can be detached for storage. There were only five roadable versions of Aerobiles produced. This project failed due to a lack of funding.
The Antonov A-40
In 1942, an experiment on air cars took place with a gliding tank by the Soviet armed forces. That was called the Antonov A-40. But the experiment failed as it could not fly on its own.
ConvAirCar
In the 1940s, Consolidated-Vultee designed and developed a two-door sedan with a detachable airplane unit.
Later, In 1947, Henry Dreyfuss debuted and developed the ConvAirCar. That could offer 45 miles per gallon, one hour of flight, and gas mileage. The vehicle was made of fiberglass with wings and a propeller on the roof. It crashed during its third test flight.
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First Practical Flying Cars
In 1946 Molt Taylor started designing a roadable aircraft. It was utilized with folding wings. That allows the vehicle to convert into a plane within five minutes by one person.
Taylor’s prototype was built in 1949, and it was able to make a successful flight in December that year. But It is considered one of the first promising road-to-sky vehicles and the first practical flying cars. In 1956, the Civil Aviation Authority approved the design for large production.
In 1966, a prototype of Aero-Car was made and made60 mph on the road and in the sky at 110 mph. In 1989, An improved version was produced that could make 120 mph in the air and receive FAA approval. But it never goes for large-scale production.
Other attempts at building flying cars
Ford Mach- I Levacar
Ford Mach- I Levacar was a full-sized prototype that could fly with only one man in it. Ford Motor Co built it in the spring of 1959.
It was designed to have a hover in the air from a few inches up off the ground by three powerful air jets located on the bottom. The car was designed to be powered by a small-scale turbojet engine that could reach up to 500 mph.
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Mizar
It was a roadable aircraft built between 1971 and 1973 designed by Henry Smolinski. The prototypes of Mizar were made of Ford Pinto that paired with Cessna Skymaster. Cessna Skymaster is the rear portion of that prototype. It was intended to use both the aircraft and car engines for takeoff. On September 11, 1973, it was tested at Camarillo. The right-wing detached and fell in an accident; the creator Smolinski and the pilot were killed.
Sky Commuter
In the 1980s, A former Boeing engineer Fred Barker developed Sky Commuter in the middle of. Sky Commuter was a small duct fans-based VTOL 14-foot-long with a tricycle layout. It was made of composite materials. Also, the car was powered by an onboard gas turbine engine linked to three fans via a helicopter-based driveshaft. Three prototypes were built of Sky commuter.
The M400 Sky-car
It was a four-seat flying car designed and built by Paul Moller. Molar began the development of this VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) craft in the late 1960s, but that could not archive free flight out of ground effect. It was powered by four pairs of in-tandem Wankel rotary engines. It was an all-electric version which was.
In 2011 Paul Moller invented the M400X Skycar. And it took a tasting flight in 2012 in upstate New York.
AeroMobil
AeroMobil is a prototype roadable aircraft that Štefan Klein designed, took 20 years to develop, and was first flown in 2013.
The world’s first commercial flying car PAL-V
The world’s first commercial flying car was developed and produced by Beau Janou Metz PAL-V. In 2021, it was displayed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This car has an average speed of a vehicle up to 100mph.
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