Cars that fly…Cars that float

A Brit once said, “Americans aren’t happy if they can’t do it in their car!” Probably true.

We eat, bank, phone, watch movies, socialize, and sleep and …uh …well…do a lot of “other things” in our cars as well. The plush leather interiors rival our living rooms. A Mark Levinson sound system in the Lexus can influence our luxury car choice. We just LOVE to do things in our cars! A few years ago a Wilkinson Blvd. convenience store even boasted a drive-thru line for grocery shopping. In our ingenuity we have designed cars that fly… and cars that float!

Cars and airplanes shared their childhood. The internal combustion engine was the common thread that wove them together. The Wright brothers, Henry Ford, Henry Leland, Glenn Curtiss and Ransom Olds were all born in the thirty-five years spanning 1843-1878. Leland’s reliable Liberty engines powered many of the World War I biplanes. Other builders dappled in aviation, but it was Henry Ford that recognized the future demand for reliable air travel.

After his transatlantic flight in 1927, Charles Lindbergh visited Henry Ford in his Spirit of St. Louis. According to the Ford archives, he gave Ford his first airplane ride. Henry was so impressed with Lindbergh’s finesse in the sky that he hired him as Ford Motor Company’s first pilot.

Henry Ford’s lumbering Tri-Motor is now an icon, but his first venture was the Flivver. When engineer Otto Koppen asked Ford how big he wanted it, he quipped, “Small enough to fit inside my office.” The end result was a stubby fifteen-foot fuselage with twenty-three foot spruce wings. With all three cylinders banging away, the 85-hp engine pushed the little plane nearly ninety miles an hour. Only four were built.

Through connections between aircraft designer William B. Stout and the Ford engineering staff, Henry heard about Stout’s Air Sedan. Shortly afterwards, he appeared at the sprawling Detroit plant and paced it end to end. On the spot he snapped up six of the airplanes and began regular freight service to Chicago – America’s first commercial airline venture. A year later during 1925, Ford returned and wrote a check for the company! Eventually this single engine, high wing cocoon metamorphosed into the famous three- engine Ford Tri-Motor. The American public was easily sold on the plane’s safety when pictures of Admiral Byrd’s North Pole expedition splashed across front pages.

While Stout’s early plane had automobile features such as a key ignition, a floor-mounted starter button and pedal wheel brakes, it wasn’t built for the highway. Credit for the first drivable flying car goes to Robert Fulton, Jr. and his one-off 1946 Airphibian. When fellow engineer Molt Taylor saw it fly, he decided he could build a better one. These were the only two “flying cars” that ever received government type approval. Since Taylor actually produced several Aerocars, he has become the “patron saint of the flying car!”

He relied on fiberglass to save weight. The pusher propeller required a long and angled drive shaft. This created significant vibration. To absorb the rattle, he resorted to packing tiny steel shot into the couplings. The rear wheels had to spin freely for landing so the tiny beetle body car used a front wheel drive. The wings folded insect-like beside the tail section trailer. With a little practice, the car could spread its wings for flight in a few minutes.

Americans were ripe for extravagance in the post-war 1940s. They saw a “plane in every garage.” Actor Bob Cummings bought one for his TV show. Molt Taylor made many guest appearances and startled the panel of “I’ve Got A Secret” when they removed their blindfolds and saw an airplane in front of them.

The Aerocar had a top airspeed of 110 mph and cruised as high as 12,000 feet. It took off in less than 750 feet and landed at 50 mph. The glowing ads for the Aerocar claimed 18 mpg on the road and 8 gallons per hour in the air. I saw one at the 2000 AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI.

Lee Iacocca and Ford Motor Company expressed a fleeting interest in purchasing the company. Aerospace giant Ling-Temco-Vaught even offered to build a thousand of them if Taylor could sell half the orders at $8,500 a piece. He couldn’t make that goal and his meager production quickly ceased.

At the end of World War II, all aircraft companies were looking for work. Engineers at Convair saw a market for a small air car and built two prototypes called the ConvAirCar. Upper management quickly saw the folly of 100,000 small personal planes zipping over New York or Chicago skies at rush hour! They switched to building sensible commercial airliners.

So what about today? The idea is still around. A current version uses a 1500 pound Lotus Elise with a separate winged flight module packing a turbocharged V8. Go to the website www.aerocar.com for a glimpse of the sleek beauty!

Next month…Cars that float!

Bob

Another good source to pick the mind of is Terry Bond, Chairman, AACA Internet Committee, and his e-mail address is: terry007@infionline.net. Terry was the Vice–President — Publications for AACA the year I started out as an editor and he has given me the consent to have any editors contact him for inspiration! Although no longer serving on the Publications Committee (I believe that’s correct), he continues to be a part of the Newsletter Seminars at the AACA Annual Meet. Once it gets in your blood the desire stays there a long time.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to e-mail with them. I certainly don’t consider myself an expert, my history of English courses in high school and an engineering college was a study in survival. But perhaps different ideas are what makes a big part of a newsletter. I’ve been the editor of Hornets Nest Region, AACA Members’ Parade going on my eight year, and the forth year as the Rummage Box editor — all because it is a very, very fun job!!!

Also, the competition amongst editors has really increased and the quality of the newsletters is really outstanding, so I encourage all editors to share newsletters with other Regions and Chapters. Again, e-mail me if you would like to receive a copy of Members’ Parade and I see that you receive a copy each month.

Also, I confess to getting new layout ideas and graphic art ideas from automobile magazines, and the new Antique Automobile with West Peterson as the new editor, has some great layouts.

I encourage you to read it so all the valuable ideas and suggestions he lays out. And remember, access the Rummage Box on line at www.aaca.org to directly download articles, pictures and photographs. Judy Edwards does an outstanding job of posting each issue to the web site in both HTML and PDF format after I mail her a CD of the issue. Thanks, Judy.

Remember, make a fun at being an editor!