The Coming Air Age

Lovejoy writes "Sixty years ago in The Atlantic Monthly, Igor Sikorsky wrote The Coming Air Age. "Any of us who are alive ten years after this Second World War is won will see and use hundreds of short-run helicopter bus services." He goes on to write about personal helicopters which fit in large garages and that helicopters that are easier to drive than cars, etc.. So, will personal flight ever be viable? Do wildly wrong predictions like this give futurists pause? I think they should."

Comments

Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen.

[shadowj]

When the power goes in a helicopter you just drop, vertically.

Not quite true. When the power goes in a helicopter, there's a lot of angular momentum stored in the rotor, and aerodynamic effects allow you to spin the rotor even faster by angling the blades appropriately as you, er, plummet.

As you approach the ground (probably a lot faster than you'd like), you angle the blades to bite into the air, trading lift for angular momentum. If you do this correctly, you may be able to save your butt.