The Fulton FA-2 Airphibian is an American roadable aircraft manufactured in 1946.
31-539: Designed by Robert Edison Fulton Jr. , it was an aluminum -bodied car, built with independent suspension, aircraft-sized wheels, and a six- cylinder 165 hp engine. The fabric wings were easily attached to the fuselage , converting the car into a plane. Four prototypes were built. In December 1950, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) (later to become the FAA ) certified one of
62-612: A Pashtun tribe ) were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of a military offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was mainly focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”. This increasingly unstable situation in northwest Pakistan made
93-476: A book and made a film about his journey, and for several aviation-related inventions, among his 70 patents. Fulton was also a professional photographer. Fulton was born in Manhattan , New York , on April 15, 1909, and named after Thomas Edison , who was a friend of his father, Robert Edison Fulton Sr., a president of Mack Trucks . His maternal grandfather, Ezra Johnson Travis, ran stagecoach lines across
124-716: A book, One Man Caravan , telling of almost being shot at in the Khyber Pass by Pathan (Pashtun) tribesmen, avoiding Iraqi bandits, spending a night in a Turkish jail, and being a guest of Indian rajahs . He went on a lecture tour of the United States, showing his film footage and telling of his journeys. In 1983, he produced, edited, and released, with his filmmaking sons, a 90-minute film compiled from his home movies, The One Man Caravan of Robert E. Fulton Jr. An Autofilmography . Later in life, he revisited his motorcycle journey in another film program retelling of
155-400: A company that never developed it. The Airphibian took the approach of converting from an aircraft to a roadable vehicle by a conversion process that left aircraft sections behind during road use. The process consisted of removing a three-bladed propeller and placing it on a hook on the side of the fuselage, cranking down support casters, and disengaging lock levers connecting the flight unit to
186-552: A degree in architecture from Harvard in 1931, and spent a further year of architectural study in Vienna at the University of Vienna . At age 23, he traveled 25,000 miles (from London to Tokyo in 18 months) on a twin-cylinder Douglas H32 Mastif motorcycle to study architecture around the world. Along the way, he shot 40,000 feet of film of his travels, over the 18-month period. Upon his return, he detailed his adventures in
217-733: Is five kilometres (three miles) inside Pakistan, descending 460 m (1,510 ft) into the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud , about 30 km (19 mi) from the Afghan border by traversing part of the Spin Ghar mountains. Historical invasions of the Indian subcontinent have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as those of Cyrus , Darius I , Genghis Khan , and later Mongols such as Duwa , Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek . Prior to
248-614: The Anglo-Afghan Wars , with control shifting between the British, Sikhs, and Afghans. After the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), the Khyber region came under British control, and the policy of paying local tribes to maintain the route's security was implemented. The British invested in infrastructure development, building roads, railways, and telegraph lines through the pass. For strategic reasons, after
279-537: The First World War , the government of British India built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass. The Khyber Pass Railway , from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925. A common phrase during British colonial period described the length of what was then British India as "Khyber to Kanyakumari ". During World War II , concrete dragon's teeth were erected on
310-641: The Kushan era , the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route. The pass has been traversed by military expeditions launched by empires such as the Achaemenids and Sassanids, as well as by nomadic invaders from Central Asia, including the Saka, Yuezhi, and White Huns. Indian empires rarely extended their control beyond the pass, with the Maurya king Čandragupta being an exception. The Khyber Pass has witnessed
341-524: The White Mountains . Since it was part of the ancient Silk Road , it has been a vital trade route between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and a strategic military choke point for various states that controlled it. The Khyber Pass is considered one of the most famous mountain passes in the world. Following Asian Highway 1 ( AH1 ), the summit of the pass at the town of Landi Kotal
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#1732787546947372-566: The " Airphibian ." Charles Lindbergh flew it in 1950 and it was the first flying car ever certified as airworthy by the Civil Aeronautics Administration (now the FAA ). Although it was not a commercial success (financial costs of air worthiness certification forced him to relinquish control of the company, which never developed it further), it is now in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum . During
403-927: The 1950s, after studying the way trains in Britain pick up mail bags by the side of the tracks, Fulton developed the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system , also called the Skyhook for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Navy , and the United States Air Force . It was a system that was used to pick up people from the ground with an aircraft. It was used by the United States Air Force until 1996. A sister invention for Navy frogmen
434-550: The Afghan theater of conflict since the US started the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that were brought in by road were transported through the Khyber Pass. It was also used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, the route had been relatively safe, since the tribes living there (mainly the Afridi ,
465-685: The Khyber Pass, Gandhara (in present-day Pakistan) became a regional center of trade connecting Bagram in Afghanistan to Taxila in Pakistan, adding Indian luxury goods such as ivory, pepper, and textiles to the Silk Road commerce. During the Islamic period, Muslim rulers, including Mahmud Ghaznavi , Muhammad of Ghor , and Babur , used the Khyber and nearby passes for their invasions of Indian subcontinent. The Mughals attempted to control
496-546: The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1951–52, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum General characteristics Performance Robert Edison Fulton Jr. Robert Edison Fulton Jr. (April 15, 1909 – May 7, 2004) was an American inventor and adventurer . He is known for having traveled around the world on a motorcycle in 1932–33, authored
527-520: The US and NATO broaden supply routes, through Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). Even the option of supplying material through the Iranian far southeastern port of Chabahar was considered. In 2010, the already complicated relationship with Pakistan (always accused by the US of hosting the Taliban in this border area without reporting it) became tougher after the NATO forces, under
558-669: The centuries, Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwari , have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwari's authority has often been fierce. During the War in Afghanistan , the Khyber Pass was a major route for resupplying military armament and food to NATO forces in
589-469: The days of the hippie trail , taking a bus or car from Kabul to the Afghan border. At the Pakistani frontier post, travellers were advised not to wander away from the road, as the location was a barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Area . Then, after customs formalities, a quick daylight drive through the Pass was made. Monuments left by British Indian Army units from the time of British colonialism, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from
620-511: The destruction of more than 29 oil tankers and trucks and the killing of several soldiers. In August 2011, the activity at the Khyber pass was again halted by the Khyber Agency administration due to the more possible attacks of the insurgency over the NATO forces, which had suffered a period of large number of assaults over the trucks heading to supply the NATO and ISAF coalitions all over the frontier line. A number of locations around
651-898: The epic trip, "Twice Upon A Caravan." He then went to work for Pan American Airways , using his skills in cinematography to document the creation of Pan American Clipper (flying boat) air routes across the Pacific Ocean, just prior to World War II. He then formed a company to manufacture aeronautical equipment, Continental Inc. He married for the first time in 1935, to Florence (Sally) Coburn (1912–1995) of Greenwich, Connecticut, with whom he had three sons — Robert E., III (1939-2002), Travis (1943– ) of Snowmass, Colorado, and Rawn (1946– ) of Bernardston, Massachusetts. Divorced in 1982, he later married Anne Boireau Smith of Nantes, France (1926–2002). He died at his home in Newtown, Connecticut on May 7, 2004. During World War II , Fulton invented
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#1732787546947682-407: The first ground-based aerial flight trainer, the "Aerostructor," but when the military wasn't interested, he modified it into a training aid for aerial gunners, the first fixed aerial gunnery trainer, called the "Gunairstructor". After the war, because of the time it took to travel to demonstrate the gunnery trainer, he designed and built an airplane that was convertible to be an automobile, called
713-494: The highway. The area of the Khyber Pass has been connected with a counterfeit arms industry that makes various types of weapons known to gun collectors as Khyber Pass copies using local steel and blacksmiths' forges . To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Shalmani tribe and Mullagori tribe . To the south is Afridi Tirah , while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout
744-686: The old west after the Civil War, and his uncle, Elgin Travis, who took them over from his father, eventually converted the stagecoach routes into bus lines, which became Greyhound Bus Line . As a teenager, he was in the elite when he traveled by commercial aircraft from Miami, Florida , US to Havana , Cuba , in 1921, and then to Egypt when Tutankhamun 's tomb was opened in 1923. He attended middle school at Le Rosey in Lausanne, Switzerland , for two years, then went to Exeter and Choate , graduated with
775-496: The pass but faced resistance from local tribes. Ahmad Shah Durrani was the last major Islamic conqueror to cross the pass, though his successors' campaigns had limited lasting impact. Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh captured the Khyber Pass in 1834. In the 19th century, the British East India Company aimed to secure the Khyber Pass against potential Russian threats. The region was contested during
806-457: The pretext of mitigating the Taliban's power over this area, executed an attack with drones over the Durand line , passing the frontier of Afghanistan and killing three Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan answered by closing the pass on 30 September which caused a convoy of several NATO trucks to queue at the closed border. This convoy was attacked by extremists apparently linked to Al Qaida which caused
837-628: The prototypes and gave it an 1A11 Aircraft Specification, N74104. Lou Achitoff, was the CAA test pilot. The N74154 is the aircraft that is today in the main building of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, having previously been on display in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center . The craft made its debut in November 1946 at Danbury, Connecticut . Financial concerns forced Fulton to sell to
868-598: The road unit. The wing and aft fuselage are detached for road use. In the mid-1990s, one of the surviving Airphibians was restored by Fulton III, along with David Dumas and Deborah Hanson. Later, it was put on display for several years at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa , Ontario , Canada in their main display hall, but in 2009 it moved to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (annex of the National Air and Space Museum ). Since 2022 it has been on display in
899-515: The spread of Greek influence into India and the expansion of Buddhism in the opposite direction. Despite military activities, trade continued to thrive there. The Khyber Pass became a critical part of the Silk Road , a major trade route from East Asia to Europe. The Parthian Empire fought for control of passes such as this to profit from the trade in silk, jade, rhubarb, and other luxuries moving from China to Western Asia and Europe. Through
930-511: The valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India. Following the partition of British India in 1947, the Khyber Pass became part of Pakistan. Passenger services through the pass have been intermittent, with the Khyber Steam Safari, a joint venture between a private company and Pakistan Railways, operating in the 1990s. The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in
961-592: Was called Seasled . Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass ( Urdu : درۂ خیبر; Pashto : د خيبر دره , romanized: De Xēber Dara , lit. 'Valley of Khyber' [d̪ə xebər d̪ara] ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan , on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan . It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversing part of