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“Ro ads?
Where we’re
going, we don’t
need roads.”
FLIGHT
OF FANCY
Actor Christopher
“Doc Brown” Lloyd
(below) revisits
his famous time-
traveling DeLorean
at the 2017 Comic
Con convention
in San Diego.
RUMOR HAS IT the first time Karl Benz drove his 1885
Motorwagen—the world’s first-ever automobile—down a
public byway in Manheim, Germany, a passerby exclaimed
to a friend, “Wow! Look at that thing! Wouldn’t it be cool
if it could fly?”
For as long as automobiles have existed, it seems, drivers
have wished their ground-bound cars could take to the air.
In 1917, just 14 years after the Wright Brothers’ first powered
aircraft flight, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss unveiled his
winged, rear-propellered Autoplane. It managed a few
brief skips into the air but never really, uh, took off. Years
later—following numerous aborted prototypes and several
fatal nosedives by would-be flying-car pioneers—aerospace
engineer Moulton “Molt” Taylor unveiled his 1949 Aerocar,
a “roadable aircraft” that towed its wings when driving and
actually worked. In 1956 the Aerocar even received certifi-
cation by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, forerunner
to today’s FAA. Alas, Taylor’s machine never received the
required 500 orders to reach production status, and just
six were built. (They all still exist; three are even said still to
be airworthy.)
Fast-forward several decades, and we reach the ending of
1985’s biggest Hollywood blockbuster, when mad scientist
Doc Brown promises teenagers Marty McFly and Jennifer
Parker that the future to which his time-traveling DeLorean
is taking the three of them will be a place where cars can
fly—no roads necessary. That faraway year in question? 2015.
Turns out, depending upon whom you talk to, the wacky
Doc may only have been five to 10 years off.—Dr. Emmett Brown, ‘Back to the Future’