FLYING MOTOR-CAR

Manawatu Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 4705, 30 September 1936, Page 4

FLYING MOTOR-CAR

EXPERIMENTS IN PROGRESS.

British and American engineers are co-operating in one of the most interesting personal travel experiments of recent years. Its object fs the production of a two-seat roadable autogiro for the American Department of Commerce. A British aero-engine is being fitted. The machine is a development of the “autodynamic” or direct takeoff gyroplane. It gives motor car accommodation, with a closed cabin and side-by-side seating, and it will run on the road or in the aii'. When the travellers decide to exchange the highway for the airway they extend the machine’s rotor blades, do a jump take-off and continue their journey as a fully fledged autogiro. (Fascinating possibilities are opened up by the design of this roadable autogiro, for it embodies a solution to the problem of terminal communications for private aeroplane owners. Large air line organisations are able without difficulty to provide their own road transport to and from their aerodromes, but the private aeroplane owner must usually rely upon beingable to hire a car. The roadable autogiro, if it fulfils the expectations of its designers, will be able to give door-to-door communication to its owner without forcing him at any time to call upon the public transport organisations. The undercarriage has three wheels, anl there are also the road Avheels, and there are also the road are used for steering, and one is at the back and is used for driving.