Science Past from the issue of February 23, 1963

NEW AIR TRANSPORT — Instead of trains on railroads and trucks on expensive highways, the less developed countries in the future are likely to use for their transport hybrid helicopter-airplanes that need only simple landing fields and no roads or rails between. This possibility was offered … by Dr. Phillip R. Carlson of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. The new kind of aircraft would be especially useful in the early stages of area development, operating for distances of less than 500 miles, to establish railroad depots, river ports, and ocean harbors. The new type of craft could be designed, built and put into service in a few years…. Like a helicopter, the proposed craft would be able to rise vertically from unpaved sites, but, like a conventional airplane, forward flight would be possible using wings and airplane engines.