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"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner

Aero Bus (Flying Bus)  
  A flying bus.  

Sometimes referred to as a "flying bus" also called a "street airplane".

When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't protrude the tongue," and then the crash came.

They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God."

"Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot more than that."

Technovelgy from What Not: A Prophetic Comedy, by Rose Macaulay.
Published by London Constable And Company Ltd. in 1918
Additional resources -

Here are the rules:

"If you hope to achieve safety in a street aero
(1) Do not alight before the aero does.
(2) Do not attempt to jump up into an aero in motion."

Then a picture:
"A will be killed because he is standing immediately beneath a descending aero bus.
B will be killed because he and others like him have shaken the nerve of the aviator."

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
  More Ideas and Technology by Rose Macaulay
  Tech news articles related to What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
  Tech news articles related to works by Rose Macaulay

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