Chapter 1: the working context

Individual air travel

The possibility most usually canvassed is that within a measurable time some kind of individual jet-propulsion unit will be developed, of which a rudimentary form has already been tried out in the U.S.A, for military use. This may well come about, but the problems of weather, navigation, air-space, and traffic control appear so formidable that it may be questioned whether such a device would ever be practical for mass use, for either freight or passengers, in the crowded conditions of the modern city. One only has to think of the rush-hour conditions in any large city to realise what would be involved. Another factor, it may be hoped, will exercise a strong restrictive influence on a technical development of this kind, namely the preservation of privacy. The motor vehicle has been eroding many of the common amenities of life, but there is still some privacy left in back gardens, verandahs, bedrooms and on roof-tops. All these would be threatened if people could take off vertically at will, proceed in any direction, and hover about just as they pleased. Strict canalisation of movement would almost certainly be demanded, and if this resolved itself into the equivalent of roads up in the air then the advantages of this kind of transport might not be as overwhelming as they appear at first glance. This is not to say however that vertical-take-off aircraft may not be developed considerably as freight cars and multi-passenger units, but in this case they would not be providing the individual, highly flexible, door-to-door service which, unquestionably, is the feature of the motor vehicle that gives it its greatest appeal. The competition would tend to be with existing methods of public transport, particularly long-distance transport, and the result might well be to leave motor transport in towns more or less unaffected.