One of science’s biggest betrayals is not making flying cars a reality. We’ve been teased with the idea of being able to cruise the skies in our automobiles for decades; flying cars have featured in tonnes of science fiction stories since The Jetsons in the 60s and Star Wars in the 70s, and have been central to our vision of the future.
The first attempt at something like a flying car came in 1926, when Henry Ford attempted to build a small, single-seat aeroplane, however he abandoned the idea a couple of years later when a pilot died during a test flight. In 1940, he said “Mark my word: a combination airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile, but it will come.” He’s not technically wrong, but we’re still waiting.
The closest we’ve come so far is the AeroMobil 3.0, which can be driven like a car on the road, but can easily spread its wings and fly. Still, it doesn’t exactly blend in with normal traffic.
A flying car future could still be a thing, as NASA set up the Personal Air Vehicle Sector Project in 2003. For a vehicle to be considered a legitimate ‘personal air vehicle’, it must meet a number of criteria, including the fact it must be easy enough to drive that anyone with a driving licence could do it.
Article source: https://www.carthrottle.com/post/10-awesome-car-technologies-that-never-took-off/
