US Patent for the AEROCAR - Flying Car-TAYLOR 1956 #598

This is a reproduction of the patent issued to the inventor from the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). There are 11 documents total. The 1st drawing sheet of the patent has been printed onto 65 lb. parchment cover stock. This print has been sized for installation into any 8" x 10" standard picture frame. The additional sheets included are printed on 60 lb. 5.50" x 8.50" parchment paper. These accompanying documents describe the scope of this invention in formal terms. The following is an excerpt from the patent...

"This invention relates in general to an automotive vehicle assembly equally suitable either for air travel or for land travel and capable of being converted quickly and easily from a highway automobile to an aeroplane and vice versa. More specifically this invention relates to a convertible assembly, one arrangement of which results in a complete aeroplane and the other arrangement of which results in a highway automobile having a detachable trailer, which assembly is completely mobile without recourse to other transport means. While various attempts have heretofore been made to produce vehicles adapted for both land and air travel, the necessity of removing or folding at least the wings from an aeroplane, or similar vehicle adapted for air travel, before the same can be operated on a highway as a land vehicle, has heretofore presented two main difficulties.

One of these difficulties is the problem of folding or removing or demounting the external members necessary for air travel, in particular the wings, when the vehicle is to be used for land travel, and remounting such members again for air travel. Thus when the folding, demounting or remounting of the wings involves considerable effort, labor, time or encumbrance, the convertible feature of the vehicle is largely negatived. In the situation of demounting the wings, the other difficulty is the problem of temporarily disposing of the wings, transporting them and handling the demounted members while the vehicle is used for land travel. If such removed members are stored at the landing field then it is necessary, after the vehicle has been used for land travel, to return to the same landing field for the remounting of such members for air travel. This defeats a main objective which would be to enable the vehicle to proceed by land when conditions are temporarily unsuited for air travel and then subsequently again to continue on the course by air.

One of the objects of the present invention is to provide an improved convertible flying automotive assembly in which the wings and other members, which are required only for air travel, can be easily and quickly demounted and again remounted by a single operator with very little physical effort and only a minimum expenditure of time. Another principal object of the invention is to provide an improved convertible assembly of the character described wherein the demountable members, not used in land travel, will combine of themselves to form a separate trailer vehicle complete in itself, so as to be capable of being towed along the highway by the land automobile portion of the assembly, instead of necessitating the leaving of such members at the spot where their demounting takes place, or instead of requiring the temporary employment of another vehicle or other additional equipment to provide mobility for conveying the demounted members, or even requiring the demounted members to be awkwardly carried by such land automobile portion of the assembly..."