Thursday
May102007
Commuter Helicopter (1947)
Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 2:02PM 
This painting by Alexis V. Lapteff (1905-1991) is titled "Family Departing Visit with Grandparents in their Commuter Helicopter." It was produced in 1947 and is featured in the Petersen Automotive Museum book, Driving Through Futures Past.
See also:
Flying Car Patent (1991)
Reader Comments (7)
Cool; I suppose that in the future, all lawn furniture will be made out of solid lead, in order to keep it from blowing away in the rotor downwash of all the helicopters landing in all the backyards!
Having been a crewman and mechanic on Search & Rescue helicopters, I cannot imagine personal flying vehicles ever hitting the general public.
Most drivers have a hell of a time paying attention in two dimensions, let alone three!
Can you imagine some cell-phone yakking soccer mom actually paying attention to altitude corrections, traffic alerts, and clearance changes from ATC,or checking the weather in the morning, calculating fuel consumption in-flight, or doing a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft?
I litterally shudder at the thought.
Arkonbey is right. Furthermore I don't see any sense in personal aircrafts. they can do nothing you can't do with a car or public transportation at least as well.
how about personal dirigibles ? Should reach decent speed, and a collapsible frame would make it easier to park, after pumping out the helium.
... yes, I spent lots of time in blocked in traffic, so I am allowed to dream :)
ATTN: Arkonbey
Look out -- http://farenblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-want-one.html" REL="nofollow">it's coming sooner than you think!
Where is your imagination guys? How about computers that take care of flying those helicopters for you, including collision avoidance, leaving you to decide if you want to go up or down, and in what direction. Its not so far off!
Also are you trying to say that cars or buses are better than helicopters? What?
@Anonymous - you still need to check the weather forecast, you still need to be aware of what does icing mean, you still need what temperature and air density mean to your engine performance and take off performance, you still need to do a lot of planning and thinking ahead, even if you can just dial-in the route into the flight computer and let the autopilot do the job. Then, you also need to be able to deal with the unforeseen, say dramatic change of weather conditions or erratic behavior of other aircraft. Flying requires thinking and a common Joe six-pack or a soccer-mom are severely lacking in this regard.
One more argument is that if too many people would be traveling in their personal aircraft, the air space would become congested. We already have busy skies and ATC is struggling with increasing air traffic. Letting in masses of unqualified pilots would certainly not help.