Some ideas are way too ambitious, and ever since the automobile appeared and two brothers figured out that whole flying thing in North Carolina, the idea of a flying car has been ingrained in the minds of dreamers. Who wouldn’t want to give two single-finger salutes to sitting in traffic as you effortlessly float past above their heads? Who didn’t grow up watching The Jetsons and dreaming of the day where the family car needed an altimeter gauge? It’s been over a hundred years…where the hell is the flying car?

The best explanation is: not here yet. And there are good reasons why that hasn’t happened. There have been attempts, sure. There was the 1947 Convair Model 118, which did fly well…right up until a forced landing happened after the pilot forgot to check the fuel level of the engine that drove the propellor and had to crash-land the sucker, destroying it. Or there is the infamous AVE Mizar, the Flying Pinto. One part Cessna Skymaster, one part pipe bomb joke, the Mizar did fly, but due to a serious design flaw in how the Skymaster section was attached to the Pinto, the wing tended to fail. The first time, a test pilot just put the car down in a bean field and all was well enough. The second time a wing strut failed, the creator of the Mizar and the Vice-President of the company were dead from a fiery crash.

With recent news about flying cars and now, flying drones capable of hauling humans around, we felt that it might be a good time to review some history before others are doomed to repeat it. We aren’t saying that the upcoming attempts are destined to fail. Terrafugia has been testing the hell out of the Transform for years. But it’s a worthy precautionary note that all new products do have an element of risk to them.