In Your Flying Car Awaits, author Paul Milo discusses “robot butlers, lunar vacations and other dead-wrong predictions of the 20th Century.” Here are 10 calamitous tech failures. Even the ones that did make it aren’t anything like the original vision. More »
Look, the future didn’t happen in 1956, it’s not going to happen this year, and it’s never going to happen, ok? No matter how cool these flying cars may look like.
This flying automobile is probably the only real transformer in existence: The Aerocar, a machine that actually flies and can be legally driven on a highway. Built by Moulton B. Taylor in 1956 and powered by a Lycoming 160HP engine, you only have to attach the folded wings, tail, and propeller to explore the skies at 265kph. Don’t believe it? The FAA does, and you only need $US3.5 million to buy and enjoy one.
Unlike so many other pie-in-the-sky tech masturbation fantasies masquerading as projects that’ll see the light of day, Terrafugia’s Transition flying car amazingly looks like it really will go on sale next year, as its creators claimed three years ago. Gregory Mone from Pop Sci even got to sit in the $US194,000 car, which is basically “a single-engine, rear-propeller aeroplane that just happens to be street-legal.” It’s still on track for its first test flight next month, and experts expect that it will indeed fly. We won’t get truly Jetsons giddy until it does take flight, but we’re pretty excited in the meantime. [Pop Sci]
