Puzzled farmers of the plateau country between Paris and Chartres have been scratching their heads and stroking their whiskers at the sight of a 170-m.p.h. vehicle that flies without wings astride a single concrete rail. The streamlined craft that keeps the grands-pères guessing is a half-scale experimental model of France's wheelless, one-car "aerotrain." After a year of tests, the French government just gave the go-ahead for construction of a full-sized model that will whisk 84 passengers down a 16-mile test run at speeds of up to 250 m.p.h.
Progenitor of the aerotrain is 49-year-old Engineer-Designer Jean Berlin, who in August 1965,...
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