Edward Robert Armstrong (1876–1955) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

- American engineer and inventor who in 1927 proposed a series of "seadrome" floating airport platforms for airplanes to land on and refuel for transatlantic flights. While his original concept was made obsolete by long-range aircraft that did not need such refueling points, the idea of an anchored deep-sea platform was later applied to use for floating oil rigs.

Biography

* Armstrong was born in 1876 in

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. * He moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and worked in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

in the early 1900s, developing oil-well-drilling machinery. * In 1909 he went to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

as an automotive and aviation engineer. * In 1916 he went to DuPont to work on the construction of their

nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

plant in

Hopewell, Virginia Hopewell is an independent city surrounded by Prince George County and the Appomattox River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 23,033. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Hopewell with Prin ...

. He was then promoted to chief of the plant's mechanical research department. * In 1924 he quit DuPont to work full-time on his "seadrome" project. In 1926 he incorporated the "Armstrong Seadrome Development Company", of

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington (Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

. * He died in 1955.

Seadrome

A seadrome was to be a floating steel landing strip, the size of an aircraft carrier, anchored to the ocean floor by steel cables. It would rise or more above the surface of the ocean by tubular columns that would allow waves to pass underneath. The columns would terminate in ballast tanks below the surface. The runway platform would provide a runway by wide with extended midsides to allow for a hotel, restaurant, and other facilities. The plan was to position a series of seadromes across the Atlantic Ocean about apart to allow for refueling of airplanes. He had been thinking of the idea as early as 1913. In 1915 he completed the first design, and in 1922 he built a 1/300 scale model. In 1926 he performed a test that he filmed, with scale models of his seadrome and the ocean liner ''Majestic'' in a tank of water. He used a fan to create the equivalent of waves, and the seadrome was stable. In 1927 when the Lindbergh and other

transatlantic flight A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing air ...

s were made, newspapers started running stories of his concept. He had financial backing until

The Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...

of the 1930s. The last time he made the proposal was in 1943, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. By that time long-range aircraft had already been designed for the war effort, and

aircraft carriers An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a n ...

were already in use. During the years following the depression, Armstrong made a number of rebids for the program and eventually the project was downsized from eight to five seadromes as planes had become more advanced. By WWII, the advent of long-range passenger flight made the concept obsolete. Armstrong's efforts with DuPont and Sun Ship Building, owned by Sun Oil, led to his ideas and basic designs being used by the oil industry to create the

Semi-submersible Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as: * Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport *Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface * ...

off shore oil rig.History Detectives
Seadrome
/ref>

Publications

* Edward Robert Armstrong; America-Europe via North Atlantic airways over the Armstrong seadrome system of commercial ocean transit by airplane (1927) * Edward Robert Armstrong; The seadrome project for transatlantic airways (1943) * Leonard H. Quick; Seadrome: phase 1 report

References

External links

Armstrong's Floating Airports: Innovation in History

''American Heritage'': Edward Armstrong
*

''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', November 27, 1933
Seadrome
''

History Detectives ''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or connections to important h ...

'', season 7, episode 10, 30 August 2009
"Floating Airports"
''

Modern Mechanix ''Mechanix Illustrated'' was an American printed magazine that was originally published by Fawcett Publications. Its title was founded in 1928 to compete against the older ''Popular Science'' and ''Popular Mechanics''. Billed as "The How-To-Do Ma ...

'', February 1934
"Uncle Sam asked to build Floating Ocean Airports"
'' Popular Science'', February 1934 (archived at modernmechanix.com) {{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Edward 1876 births 1955 deaths Members of the Early Birds of Aviation People from Guelph

Biography

Seadrome

Publications

See also

References

External links