Science Art: From The Helicopters Are Coming, 1944.

A scientific illustration (in the form of a cartoon) depicting the coming age of helicopters, when police will simply be able to hover by your high-rise apartment window to conduct their inquiries.
A scientific illustration (in the form of a cartoon) depicting the coming age of helicopters, when police will simply be able to hover by your high-rise apartment window to conduct their inquiries.

A scientific illustration (in the form of a cartoon) depicting the coming age of helicopters, when police will simply be able to hover by your high-rise apartment window to conduct their inquiries. Click to embiggen
This illustration, by Erik Nitsche and Roslyn Welcher, is from a book by CBF Macauley that claims to be “the first complete work ever dedicated to the subject of helicopters.” It’s a curious book, mislabeled on archive.org, and seems to be half popular science and half… cutesy humor? At least the illustrations have a kind of droll, James Thurber vibe to them. Obviously, helicopters were going to change life in large ways and small… though maybe not as much as Macauley expected.

The University of Iowa has some of his prognostications in brief describing “the coming Air Age” (and showing off his very keen mustache). The “new 300-passenger super-airliners” were pretty much on the money. Not so much the “geographical barriers now gone forever,” though. At least not yet, not geopolitically.

And that officer really needs to watch his back if he’s going to be perching up there like that.