The Flying Car, Part 2: History

Aerocar
The launch of the flying car is definitely a great development considering the flexible city, though it is not a new idea. For long, experiments have been executed with vehicles that could fly and drive. Already before the Second World War, back in the twenties and thirties, these vehicles were about to be introduced in some parts of the world. Flying, these first days, was considered to be the next step beyond the personal car, with an even greater sense of personal freedom, rather than a collective transportation system as being used now.

Autoplane
—Photo: Davidszondy

In the Netherlands, the introduction of the flying car was very closeby, but in the end the bus in the air won over the car in the air. As a consequence of the strong position of KLM, the idea of ANWB (Dutch automobile association) to create a flying car infrastructure was set aside. With the purposse to make private flying more acurate and easy, in 1907 the KNVvL (Dutch association for air traffic) initiated a nationwide system of air routes by using the roofs of the big gas holders. From the air flyers could easily see were to go for the cities nearby. Because of the German invation in 1940 this whole routing system has been phased out, with the idea not to help the German air strikers. Right after the Second World War air traffic became a semi-public transport thing.

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