Editing Flying car (section)

===Early 20th century===
In 1901 German immigrant to the U.S. Gustave Whitehead purportedly flew a powered aircraft, which was described as able to propel itself along roads to the site of the flying experiment.<ref>Freeman, David. [https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gustave-whitehead-first-flight-wright-brothers_n_3316475 "Gustave Whitehead's First Flight Beat Wright Brothers' By Years, Aviation Expert Contends"]. ''Huffington Post''. 22 May 2013. ''"[Whitehead] purportedly took aloft a flying car of his own design"''.</ref>{{Failed verification|date=August 2024}}<ref>Bongartz, Roy. "Was Whitehead First?" ''Popular Mechanics''. December 1981. Pp.68-76. "Beech described the plane as self-powered on the ground, like an automobile".</ref>{{Better source needed|PopMechanics isn't a recognised source on aviation history, and all this story does is report what the previous unreliable sources - rejected by aviation historians - have to say.|date=August 2024}}<ref>Glass, Andrew. ''Flying Cars: The True Story'', Clarion, 2015. {{ISBN|978-0618984824}}. Chapter 2. ''"Despite controversy, the chronicle of Gustave Whitehead's flying automobile..."''</ref>{{Unreliable source?|reason=See talk page:Glass's book is self-described 'Juvenile Nonfiction', and I can find no evidence that Glass has any credentials as any sort of aviation historian|date=August 2024}} Consensus among historians is that Whitehead's no. 21 did not achieve sustained self-powered flight.<ref name="SciAm2014">{{cite news |last1=Schlenoff |first1=Daniel C. |title=Scientific American Debunks Claim Gustave Whitehead Was 'First in Flight' |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-american-debunks-claim-gustave-whitehead-was-first-in-flight/ |access-date=6 November 2022 |work=Scientific American |date=8 July 2014 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="FlyingMagBurns2017">{{cite news |last1=Burns |first1=Ashley |title=Connecticut Towns Honor Gustave Whitehead, Reigniting 'First in Flight' Debate |url=https://www.flyingmag.com/connecticut-towns-honor-gustave-whitehead-reigniting-first-in-flight-battle/ |access-date=6 November 2022 |work=Flying Magazine |date=15 August 2017}}</ref><ref name="Crouch2016JAH">{{cite journal |last1=Crouch |first1=Tom |title=The Flight Claims of Gustave Whitehead |journal=Journal of Aeronautical History |date=2016 |url=https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4951/the-flight-claims-of-gustave-whitehead.pdf |access-date=6 November 2022}}</ref>

Aircraft designer [[Glenn Curtiss]] built his [[Curtiss Autoplane|Autoplane]] in 1917. It had a pusher propeller for flight, with removable flight surfaces including a triplane wing, canard foreplane and twin tails. It was able to hop, but not fly.<ref name="Time-never-come">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12vinciguerra.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |title=Flying Cars: An Idea Whose Time Has Never Come |author=Thomas Vinciguerra |author-link=Thomas Vinciguerra |date=11 April 2009}}</ref>

In 1935, Constantinos Vlachos built a prototype of a 'tri-phibian' vehicle with a circular wing, but it caught fire after the engine exploded while he was demonstrating it in [[Washington, D.C.]] Vlachos was badly injured and spent several months in hospital.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=News Cameras Film Thrilling Rescue|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eyYDAAAAMBAJ
|quote=constantinos vlachos popular science.|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eyYDAAAAMBAJ/page/n38 29]|magazine=[[Popular Science]]|date=January 1936}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Hard-Luck Vlachos|url=http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/05/18/sia-flashback-a-day-with-the-scrapper-and-hard-luck-vlachos/|page=44|journal=Special-Interest Autos|date=July 1974|access-date=11 July 2021|archive-date=25 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150125024943/http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/05/18/sia-flashback-a-day-with-the-scrapper-and-hard-luck-vlachos/|url-status=usurped}}</ref> The machine is most notable for a [[newsreel]] that captured the incident.<ref>{{YouTube|IuJMU2apQZo|Newsreel of flying car on fire}}</ref>

The [[Autogiro Company of America AC-35]] was a prototype roadable [[autogyro]], flown on 26 March 1936 by test pilot James G. Ray. Forward thrust was initially provided by twin counter-rotating propellers for thrust, later replaced with a single propeller. On 26 October 1936, the aircraft was converted to roadable configuration.<ref>{{cite book |title=Realizing the dream of flight: biographical essays in honor of the centennial of flight, 1903–2003 |last1=Dawson |first1=Virginia |first2=Mark D. |last2=Bowles |year=2005 |publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Division, Office of External Relations |asin=B002Y26TM0 |page=70}}</ref>  Ray drove it to the main entrance of the [[Commerce Building, Washington, D.C.]], where it was accepted by John H. Geisse, chief of the Aeronautics Branch. Although it had been successfully tested, it did not enter production.

The first fixed wing roadable aircraft to fly was built by [[Waldo Waterman]]. Waterman had been associated with [[Glenn Curtiss]] when pioneering [[amphibious aircraft]] at North Island on [[San Diego Bay]] in the 1910s. On 21 February 1937, Waterman's [[Waterman Arrowbile|Arrowbile]] first took to the air.<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-the-first-flying-car/147575449/ "Drives Machine Through Trafic (sic)and Then Flies It"], ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', February 22, 1937, p. 6</ref>
<ref>{{cite journal|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WScDAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Plane%20Sheds%20Wing%20To%20Run%20On%20Ground&pg=PA52 |title=Plane Sheds Wing To Run On Ground|journal=Popular Science|date=May 1937}}</ref> The Arrowbile was a development of Waterman's tailless aircraft, the [[Waterman Whatsit|Whatsit]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=wygDAAAAMBAJ&dq=Popular+Science+1931+plane&pg=PA39 "Tailless Flivver Plane Has Pusher Propeller"] ''Popular Science'', May 1934, rare photos in article</ref> It had a wingspan of {{convert|38|ft|m}} and a length of {{convert|20|ft|6|in|m}}. On the ground and in the air it was powered by a [[Studebaker]] engine. It could fly at {{convert|112|mph|km/h|abbr=on}} and drive at {{convert|56|mph|km/h|abbr=on}}.

In 1942, the British army built the [[Hafner Rotabuggy]], an experimental roadable autogyro that was developed with the intention of air-dropping off-road vehicles. In developed form the Rotabuggy achieved a flight speed of {{convert|70|mph|km/h|0|abbr=on}}. However, the introduction of [[Military glider|gliders]] that could carry vehicles (such as the [[Waco CG-4|Waco Hadrian]] and [[Airspeed Horsa]]) led to the project's cancellation.<ref>{{cite book |title=Jeeps 1941–45 |first=Steven J. |last=Zaloga |pages=37–38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I_fFkOS4b_4C&q=Rotabuggy+&pg=PA38 |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=1-84176-888-X }}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>