A like ignominious end befel [sic] that pretentious air-car which so long excited the curiosity of our citizens in the neighborhood of Houston and Mercer streets, where it was housed.
Ready for trial in the spring will be the first type of a machine which one might call an aircar.
In several scattered places were other roof doors like the one he had emerged from, and straight ahead stood a row of transparent objects that had to be the air-cars.
In the direct rays of the brilliant sun, and with but the rare Martian atmosphere to shield it, the interior of the air-car was getting uncomfortably warm even for the insensitive Martian.
Byerley brought his ‘teacher’ back the week before election. The air car dropped quickly in an obscure part of the city.
Three air-cars rested on the terrace, and the metal was as bright, the glass as clear, the enamel as vivid as if the cars had just dropped from the sky. They went to the nearest; Ulan Dhor pressed the entry button, and the dome slid back with a thin dry hiss of friction. The interior was like that of the other car—a long cushioned seat, a globe mounted on a rod, a number of switches. The cloth of the seat crackled with age as Ulan Dhor prodded it with his hand, and the trapped air smelt very stale… Cautiously he touched the switches, ready to throw them back at any dangerous manifestation. The dome snapped over their heads; relays thousands of years old meshed, cams twisted, shafts plunged home. The air-car jerked, lofted up into the red and dark blue sky. Ulan Dhor grasped the globe, found how to turn the boat, how to twist the nose up or down. This was pure joy, intoxication—wonderful mastery of the air! It was easier than he had imagined. It was easier than walking. He tried all the handles and switches, found how to hover, drop, brake. He found the speed handle and pushed it far over, and the wind sang past the air-boat.
‘They listened to the safety cranks and stopped us from projecting our messages on aircar windows, but Lab tells me—’ he nodded to our director of research across the table—‘that soon we’ll be testing a system that projects direct [sic] on the retina of the eye.’
Down at the landing was a modern shelter for a sailboat, a family submarine, and a battered aircar.
There’s an air car waiting on the roof and your boat boosts in twenty-eight minutes.
He slapped Lindy on the back, then strode up the stairs to the roof field parking area, where his aircar reposed.
‘Why didn’t you bring us by aircar?’ ‘People here on Cordiality are used to seeing me in a groundcar unless I'm on official business and require speed.’
When their aircar landed in early afternoon he was waiting for them.
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
There were other ground-cars moving in both directions and an occasional air-car above, but Pelorat was studying the trees.
I had to change a lot of things in production to make it stronger, like Slartibartfast’s aircar: anyone who had seen Star Wars would think we’d stolen it from there, so I changed it to a bubble, and he was upset about that.
The young man swung around and looked to the sky behind them, where the noise of the aircar grew louder.
antedating 1871
New York Times, 1871
Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.