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It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: A Boeing 747 with an internal hanger loaded with 10 specially designed fighter jets. An on board crew to launch, recover, refuel and rearm the jets while in mid-flight. Sleeping quarters and a crew lounge to ensure that a squadron of 14 fighter pilots and 18 mission specialists stay rested. All of it hurtling forward at Mach 0.85, 35 thousand feet above sea-level. That’s asking a lot from a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. But a once classified feasible study prepared for the U.S. Air Force details how it could be done.

In August of 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first successful Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). It was capable of delivering a heavy nuclear warhead to a target six thousand miles away, in under half an hour. The West was left scrambling for a solution. From what U.S. Intelligence could gather, the Soviets were quickly pulling ahead in developing missile technology. Projections showed that by the 1960s, the Soviets would likely have enough missiles to launch a preemptive nuclear attack. America needed a way fill this perceived ‘missile gap’.

In the 1960’s, Britain's railways were in decline. The country’s railways were slow and antiquated and facing fierce competition against growing automobile ownership and booming air travel. But elsewhere in the world, railways were beginning to make a comeback, and the key seemed to be much higher speeds. Japan’s new high speed Shinkansen Bullet Trains proved enormously successful with passengers, carrying over 100 million passengers in just the first three years of service. The French had also begun working on a revolutionary new high train, the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"). If British Rail was going to compete with automobiles and airliners, the solution seemed clear: much faster trains.

In 1974, Boeing vice president Jim Austin described the Airbus A300 as “a typical government airplane” of which “they’ll build a dozen or so and then go out of business.” He wasn't alone in his criticism. And he was almost right.

In the late 1950’s, intercity air travel was on the rise. But while a trip from New York to Boston by airplane might only take about an hour, you’d still need to get to and from the airport. And in many congested cities, that was already taking longer than the flight itself. As a solution, helicopter airlines had begun to crop up in major cities, letting passengers skip over traffic to connect airports with their city centers. But helicopters were ultimately too inefficient to become a viable form of mass transport. The Rotodyne was going to change all that. Taking off from downtown rooftops and heliports, but flying faster, further, and more economically than any helicopter, the Rotodyne would be the quickest way to move from one city centre to the next.

In the 1960s, the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev bragged that his nation had ships that could jump right over bridges. His cryptic words confused Western leaders, but he was alluding to a secret project deep within the Soviet Union.