Aircar
Well-Known Member
As I posted a few days ago - this is the most recent book to address the subject of flying cars and is written by a professional engineer, sounds excellent in the description and has been published for two years or so (2012) --there are only a literal handful of books on this subject in the whole world and the entirety of aviation yet it is (arguably,) the MOST prospective field in the whole of aviation and automotive technology.
I only got my copy a few days ago and have just completed reading it and now doing some revision and checking on the (many) weblinks and references etc but would like someone else to review it since I suspect my opinions might be considered to be a bit critical, even caustic, and because of the importance of this subject to homebuilt/ personal aviation any new book purporting to sum up and hold forth on the subject should be read and reported on 'independently' . ( I have copies of "An airplane in every garage" by Dan Zuck of Planemobile and Lockheed Skunk works fame, the original book that set out the vision and engineering elements for this futuristic concept (in 1958) ,-the gold standard for flying car literature so far, and "A drive in the clouds"--a book ABOUT Molt Taylor's lifetime of work on the flying car as he saw it (sadly Molt never did a book himself but did produce a video in 1991 as a result of my cajoling him I think.. ) and a draft copy of John Brown's compendium of all the known flying car designs and prototypes (now in abeyance after being advertised for sale a year ago ) and Palmer Stiles collected patents on flying cars "From wheels to wings"
Mainly though the lore on flying cars is only obtainable by gleaning the rare traces from obscure magazines, a few technical papers and scattered reports here and there but lacking any cohesive literature to help the aspiring designer --and to avoid repeating avoidable mistakes and thus further progress. (in fact Octave Chanute took this problem in hand for some years at the dawning of the airplane age with his "progress in Flying machines' books that united the experimenters and condensed the work being done -- only HBA is an active forum for flying car matters at this time and is invaluable for that. )
I will post a link to "Flying cars for everyone in the near future' and implore some of you with an interest and even better some industry background or engineering credentials to read and submit a summary .
I only got my copy a few days ago and have just completed reading it and now doing some revision and checking on the (many) weblinks and references etc but would like someone else to review it since I suspect my opinions might be considered to be a bit critical, even caustic, and because of the importance of this subject to homebuilt/ personal aviation any new book purporting to sum up and hold forth on the subject should be read and reported on 'independently' . ( I have copies of "An airplane in every garage" by Dan Zuck of Planemobile and Lockheed Skunk works fame, the original book that set out the vision and engineering elements for this futuristic concept (in 1958) ,-the gold standard for flying car literature so far, and "A drive in the clouds"--a book ABOUT Molt Taylor's lifetime of work on the flying car as he saw it (sadly Molt never did a book himself but did produce a video in 1991 as a result of my cajoling him I think.. ) and a draft copy of John Brown's compendium of all the known flying car designs and prototypes (now in abeyance after being advertised for sale a year ago ) and Palmer Stiles collected patents on flying cars "From wheels to wings"
Mainly though the lore on flying cars is only obtainable by gleaning the rare traces from obscure magazines, a few technical papers and scattered reports here and there but lacking any cohesive literature to help the aspiring designer --and to avoid repeating avoidable mistakes and thus further progress. (in fact Octave Chanute took this problem in hand for some years at the dawning of the airplane age with his "progress in Flying machines' books that united the experimenters and condensed the work being done -- only HBA is an active forum for flying car matters at this time and is invaluable for that. )
I will post a link to "Flying cars for everyone in the near future' and implore some of you with an interest and even better some industry background or engineering credentials to read and submit a summary .