Introduction

I was inspired to do a research on Flying Cars, and the Taylor Aerocar in particular by a thread in the Yahoo group Scale Model Nostalgia. There is disussed a rare plastic kit of the Aerocar by the manufacturer Gladen Enterprises. Flying cars fit well in my Aircraft Type Collection. As a child of the fifties I´m very much interested in all that fancy projects of this period, which were reported in the media but which I did not really understand in those times.

This is the first time I managed to put down data from a research directly into this website, these being stored only temporarily on my harddisk. That is how my online Aircraft Type Collection should work .

History

Moulton B. Taylor has been developing a flying automobile since Februrary, 1948 in his company Aerocar Inc., which he set up in Longview, Wash. USA.

First Flight of the Aerocar was on December 8, 1949

The competing flying car designs , the Fulton Airphibian (1946) and the ConVairCar (1947) had fixed wings so that the car and flight sections had to be completely separated for road operation. Taylor designed his Aerocar with folding wings.

When the flight section is detached from the car section, the wings which have trailer wheels insert in the leading edges of the wing roots, may be folded to each sides of the tail section and the flight section is towed tail first behind the car section.

The Aerocar was by far the the most successfull of all Flying Cars projects.

Taylor got the C.A.A .Type Certificate approval of the Aerocar on December 13, 1956.

All in all six Aerocars have been built flown and driven though Taylor never found a manufacturer for series production.¹⁾

Aerocar (N102D owned by Ed Sweeney) has been reported still flying in 2002 at Air Venture, Oshkosh.

The prototype has been restored to flyable condition (as for November 2005 ) for the Air Venture Museum registered as N4994P.

The last entry for Aerocar Inc. in Jane´s All the World´s Aircraft [1] is to be found in the 1992-93 edition. It still states Moulton B. Taylor as President and General Manager . In the introduction to this entry you learn that "...the design and theoretical work continues on the concept of a 'fying automobile in its CRX fourth generation form."

Then there are described four homebuilts developed and sold as kits. (Sooper Coot Amphibian, Mini-Imp , Micro-Imp, Bullet 2000 ).

Molton Taylor passed away in 1995 [2].

Model I

N101D still existing, now owned by Greg Herrick.

N102D, once owned by TV host Bob Cummings, ³⁾ has been restored by Ed Sweeney in Black Forest, CO. Presumably it is shown in this photograph.

N103D is no longer airworthy, owned by Mildred Felling in Grand Junction, CO.

N4994P ( link to Air Venture Museum) . Prototype N31214 rebuild for EAA to flyable condition.

Model II Aero-Plane

N107D [5]  Only one prototype built. Now owned by Ed Sweeney. The Aero-Plane is a non roadable development of the Aerocar. The flight section is identical but the cabin has been redesigned to accomodate 4 seats, aircraft tricycle landing gear relacing the car like wheels. The prototype Aero-Plane has been fitted with the wing-tail unit from an existing Aerocar.

Model III

N100D (N4345F [5]  ? ) .Only one example built. Like the Model I it has two seats and four wheels, but the wheels partially retract, thereby allowing a slightly faster cruise speed. "It was aerodynamically redesigned to look more like a Jaguar than a Crosley." ⁴⁾ It is exibited in the Museum of Flight [2].

This text has been abstracted from various issues of Jane´s All the World´s Aircraft [1], and the websites from Museum of Flight [2] and Air Venture Museum [3] and the book Unconventional Aircraft [4]

Informations on individual aircraft as at November, 16, 2005. Additional data can be found at [5] and [6] .