I saw a great segment on PBS’s History Detectives today that I wanted to share with you. I thought it was a perfect topic for this year’s theme, Innovation in History: Impact and Change. It told the story of Edward R. Armstrong, a Canadian-born American engineer who, in the 1920s, proposed a series of floating airports across the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, passenger airplanes could not fly non-stop across the ocean. Armstrong’s proposed “Seadrome” project would solve that problem. Each floating airport would have luxury hotels and restaurants where passengers could rest while the planes refueled.
Armstrong built a prototype of the Seadrome in Chester, Pennsylvania, and tested it successfully in Choptank River in Maryland. On October 23, 1929, The New York Times claimed that construction on the first Seadrome would begin in 60 days. However, the stock market crash within the next few days crippled the project. Investors pulled their support, and Armstrong’s Seadrome project was put on hold.
Armstrong appealed to the government for support and met with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt brought Armstrong before the Federal Aviation Commission in 1934. However, his former ally on the project, Charles Lindburgh, testified against the Seadrome. Lindburgh was working for Pan American airlines at the time, which was working on planes that could make trans-Atlantic flights. Lindburgh’s testimony effectively ended the project. With advances in aviation technology, the Seadrome project was obsolete before it even began. Armstrong never saw his Seadrome airports become a reality.
So how is this an appropriate topic for this year’s theme, you wonder? Clearly Armstrong’s invention failed. A key part of this year’s theme is Impact and Change. What impact did Armstrong have, if his clever innovation was never built? How did he change our world? Well, the engineering technology Armstrong developed for the Seadrome is still being used today for semi-submersible off-shore oil rigs. Armstrong may not have seen his original vision become a reality, but he was, in a way, the father of modern oil drilling.
To learn more about Armstrong and his Seadrome project, check out these links:
- History Detectives Seadrome Segment
- Airports Across the Ocean article, American Heritage
- Edward R. Armstrong Bibliography
- Modern Mechanix Article: Floating Airports
- Popular Science Article: Uncle Sam Asked to Build Floating Ocean Airports
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