1923 Envisions the Two-Wheeled Flying Car of 1973

From the vantage full point of 2012 we often associate fly cable car with the knavish , Jetsonian approximation of the 1950s and ‘ 60s . But predictions of futurist vanish cars bombinate over major American metropolis are actually about as old as the automobile itself .

The May 1923 outlet of Science and Invention featured a two - wheeled flying car that was supposed to be the solution to New York City ’s congested streets . call the “ Helicar , ” it was stabilise by gyro and operate by a push - button control panel rather than an previous - fashioned steering bike . The Helicar is built of the “ lightest materials ” available and enclose in an “ unbreakable , unburnable , glasslike substance . ” ( Its streamlined excogitation actually reminds me a bit of thisfuturistic auto from 1918 . )

The Helicar was woolgather up by none other than the Father of the Church of modernistic science fabrication , Hugo Gernsback . In February 1904 , at the legal tender age of 19 , Gernsback moved to New York from Luxembourg and became well conversant with New York City ’s in use streets . As car get with child in the twenties , Gernsback debate that there was no option but to give tomorrow ’s motorcar the alternative to soar above the city .

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The automobile , as it is build now , tend to become larger and larger . The auto of today is fully three times as turgid as the railway car of 25 geezerhood ago . In our large city overcrowding , due to the tremendous number of automobiles , has now reach the saturation point . New York City is about to ordain a law of nature to excrete a sure bit of cab , which now crowd the streets to such an extent that it is impossible to make any time at all in certain section of the metropolis . If you really wish well to move chop-chop , you have to take the subway or the elevated railway . This term exists in most large city . It has been proposed to progress viaducts over the house tiptop , but due to the high-pitched cost it is tentative if such a plan will ever become a fact , even in a time distant from now .

The article admit a picture of a Rolls - Royce from 1923 , give retro - fantast of the 2010s a handy linear perspective on what the top - of - the - line automobile looked like 90 age ago .

Gernsback believed that the only “ pragmatic result ” to New York ’s traffic trouble was the Helicar , which he predicted to to be in employment by 1973 . What ’s middling astounding is that by 1923 the eggbeater had n’t even try itself as a practical reality yet !

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The only practical solvent is to combine the machine with an plane and this no doubtfulness will bechance during the next few decades . The Helicopter Automobile or , for scant , the helicar , will not take up very much more room than the present big 7 - rider automobile , nor will it count much more than our present - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. car , but or else of wind down the avenue , you will go straight up in the air , and follow the air traffic lines , then descend at any place you wish well . This descent can be made in the middle of the street , if necessary . The automobile may roll through the street , and may go up in an open spot , or public square , of which there will be many in the futurity .

While it will be possible for a car to alight on the ground in a narrow street , traffic ordinance may forbid this , and the aerial ascent and descent will be made from these public square or Mungo Park . The Helicar will be particularly utile for suburbanite to fly to and from work , and for pleasure . Even today our roads , whether they be suburban or country , are so clogged with traffic that it is unacceptable to get anywhere on time .

Later , Gernsback makes note of the whirlybird ’s questionable achiever in the former 1920s :

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The significant part is the propelling mechanism to drive the automobile in the atmosphere . There have been many helicopters designed so far , but up to date nothing really trustworthy has been evolved . It may be quite possible that the helicopter of the future will look altogether unlike from what we have pictured in our example . It is quite potential that no blade will be used , but rather a cast of an candid drum , interchangeable to the turbine . We have been slaked to show in our illustration the common propeller , which is collapsible , so that when the car runs as an automobile , it will not obturate traffic , nor will it catch the air .

The other special element to the car — make two wheels , instead of four — is explained by Gernsback as stimulate mother wit for a number of different reasons . Perhaps , the least compelling of which is that bicycles have just two wheel

It will be noted that only two wheels are used . Two bike are more stinting than four . There is less trouble with train and shafts , and this grammatical construction fall the free weight of the railroad car as well . A gyroscope keeps the railcar in an upright side at all multiplication , and makes riding on two wheels perfectly good .

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Two - wheel vehicles are not new , as find the bicycle . The renowned Englishman , Brennan , has already tried them out , and there will be no intellect for using four wheels in the future .

In 1909 , Gernsback opened the man ’s first store specializing in tuner at 69 West Broadway and pretty much all of his futuristic design from the 1910s and ‘ 20 include some theatrical role for radio . Number 8 on the diagram below is described as a tuner for transmit and encounter subject matter . You may recall that in the early 1920s wireless was still in itsinfancy as a broadcast medium , so it ’s unbelievable those rider are listening to something like the 1923 bang song , “ I ’ll Build a staircase to Paradise . ”

Perhaps the most depressing element of this clause for those of us in the year 2012 ( who are still largely driving cars that play on fossil fuels ) , is that Gernsback believed that we ’d probably be off gasoline by the twelvemonth 1973 .

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In our illustration we have shown a petrol engine as the drive factor for the Helicar . There is no cause why a gas locomotive should be employed . Perhaps by that clip we will be extracting electricity from the air , and merely use an galvanising motor to execute the car , or we may even go up the point where the wireless transmission of vim will be a proven fact .

The clause included an illustration of the pilot Helicar in action ( above ) . I ’ve added my own sensationalistic numbers , because the original letters are a bit unvoiced to take at this size .

( 1 ) — Push push button power control board before driver , which also switches power to helicopter private road shaft ( 3 ) , and blades ( 9 ) , when it is want to fly .

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