Aerocar: Moulton Taylor’s Flying Car of 1949

Moulton Taylor’s Aerocar was a working attempt to combine an automobile with an aircraft. The original example first flew in 1949. Its flying components could be detached for road use, making the transformation a mechanical process rather than the instant conversion often imagined in popular visions of the future.

This short documentary looks at what the Aerocar achieved and why the dream of a widely adopted flying car remained difficult. A vehicle designed for two forms of transport had to satisfy different requirements of weight, handling, safety and practicality. Demonstrating that it could fly was only one part of making it useful and commercially viable.

Museum aircraft and archival collections preserve the evidence of Taylor’s project. They also distinguish Aerocar from other roadable-aircraft experiments, including the Fulton Airphibian. The history is most interesting as a real engineering effort with particular capabilities and limitations, rather than as proof that everyday personal aviation was already solved.

Sources and further reading: 1949 Taylor Aerocar – N4994P

• eaa.org/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1949-taylor-aerocar---n4994p

Molt Taylor, 1912–1995

• archives.museumofflight.org/agents/people/2168

Fulton Airphibian FA-3-101

• airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/fulton-airphibian-fa-3-101/nasm_A19600127000