TEST FLIGHT OF THE WATERMAN AEROBILE FLYING CAR 1930s NEWSREEL FILM XD13364b

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Visit our website This brief, fragmentary film shows tests of the Waterman Aerobile aka Arrowplane. This flying car was recognized by the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1934 as one of the two award-winning designs for its flivver (i.e., light, easy-to-fly and affordable) aircraft competition. Waldo Waterman’s improved Arrowplane, the Aerobile #6, fulfilled his dream of designing a tailless roadable airplane. The Aerobile was a two-place, high-wing, cabin monoplane with a transmission drive system that operated the propeller in the air and the rear wheels on the ground. The one-piece wing was removed by moving a lever and pins. Painted in “Buick blue,“ it had many standard Studebaker, Ford, Austin, and Willys automobile parts to keep the price down and maintain the look of a car. It received FAA certification in the experimental category in 1957, but no market materialized. It’s now part of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Motion picture films don’t last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. For almost two decades, we’ve worked to collect, scan and preserve the world as it was captured on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies -- including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have endangered films you’d like to have scanned, or wish to donate celluloid to Periscope Film so that we can share them with the world, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the weblink below. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit