www.a2asimulations.com ACCU-SIM V35B BONANZA ::: A2ASIMULATIONS 7
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However, by January 1945, seven
months after the Allied invasion of
France at Normandy on 6 June 1944,
the hoped-for light of peace in Europe,
which for six years had but dimly
twinkled down at the distant end of
the war’s terribly long, dismal tunnel,
now burned ever more clearly and
brightly as a bold torch of triumph.
The rolling collapse of Nazi mili-
tary forces put them nally and irre-
vocably in full retreat after the fail-
ure of one last, desperate Wehrmacht
oensive (The Battle of the Bulge - 16
December 1944 - 25 January 1945).
By the middle of January 1945 Soviet
armed forces, having essentially
ground the Nazis’ eastern armies and
amour to dust, casting their survivors
into a frozen, deadly retreat, were
in Poland and were pushing rap-
idly, inexorably and mercilessly towards the very heart of
Germany. Daily and nightly thousands of Allied bombers
were pounding Germany’s factories and cities into rubble,
bringing the American public’s appreciation and awareness
of aviation to its zenith.
By January 1945 in the Pacic Theatre the largest part of
Imperial Japan’s army, naval and air forces, save for a few
isolated battalions which were left alone, bereft of support
to haplessly and hopelessly defend the innermost Japanese
islands, had been utterly destroyed, essentially neutral-
izing Japanese aggression. During January 1945 U. S. and
Allied forces, suering great casualties, landed at Luzon,
Philippines and liberated Manila.
AT HOME
Even in the years before the war began for the United States
a sober look at that which was occurring in Europe engen-
dered a ramping up of industry throughout the country
which facilitated the end of the Great Depression. Once at
war, virtually all industries, workplaces and factories in the
United States were intensely focused upon producing what-
ever was required to assure the ulti-
mate victory. This was no less true
in the aircraft industry. By January
1945 the Allies’ spectacular military
advances on all fronts were a clear
indication to even the most hard-
ened cynic that victory was forth-
coming. Whilst horric combat would
still continue for a time in Europe and
even longer in the Pacic, by January
1945 the general feeling was that an
end to this monstrous blood bath was
indeed nigh.
Meanwhile, as 1,000 plane bomber
raids were regularly reported in
newspapers and shown in news-
reels between features in cinemas,
the public in the U.S. became more
and more air-minded. Accordingly,
articles speculating on the future of
civilian aviation were published in
many magazines and Sunday supple-
ments particularly regarding what
was called, among other things, the
“Everyman Airplane.” In the late
1940s and early 1950s this often took
the shape of a new and then highly
misunderstood type of aircraft, the
helicopter.
In the February 1951 issue of
Popular Mechanics an illustration of
a two-seat, jet-powered helicopter
was shown being pushed back into its
garage by a suburban man in his hat
and overcoat having ostensibly just
own it back from work. An identi-
cal red helicopter is seen above his neighbour’s house. The
article “reported” that anyone could learn to y one of these
machines in only two hours.
Along with this kind of nonsense, fanciful drawings of
boat-aeroplanes and automobile- aeroplanes abounded.
One of these, designed to be a true-functioning automo-
bile as well as a true-functioning aeroplane, “Aerocar”
towed its folded wings and tail section behind whilst on
the road which, when ight was desired, were assembled
and own away. Sounds crazy, does it not? The thing is,
it actually worked. Taylor “Aerocar,” the exception to the
wildly improbable contraptions that had been permeating
the press, was both successfully driven and own in 1949.
Along with so many less practical conceptions, “Aerocar”
was also intended to be the “Everyman Airplane”, however,
only six were built and sold. All six still exist, four of them
are reportedly in yable condition and one, N102D, is still
own.
It was in this chimerical aeronautical atmosphere that
aircraft manufacturers planned to sell (real) aeroplanes to
the public in huge quantities as soon as the war ended.
N192D, the only still-flying “Aerocar”.
