

This 1943 rendering of a personal helicopter by Alex S. Tremulis appears in the book Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future by Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan. The caption from the book is below.

This concept for a high-speed personal helicopter was an early expression of what would become in the years immediately after World War II an extremely popular vision of the future. To many observers, the helicopter seemed to promise wings for city dwellers who might land atop their apartments or office buildings. Unfortunately, helicopters were - and remain - difficult to fly, relatively unsafe, noisy, and energy inefficient.