The idea of floating airports has been around for a very long time in one form or another and some still believe the idea could provide a solution to a region’s air traffic problems. Here I look at the history of the Seadromes concept and how they continue to be a consideration.
Below: Diagram for the proposed floating airport near Schipol
In July 2007 various publications reported a two-year old proposal by a far-thinking Encinitas, California lawyer who was attempting to revive the idea of offshore floating airports. The company he formed, Ocean Works Development planned to build a 2000 acre platform, costing US$20 billion, 10 miles off the San Diego coast at a point where the Pacific is 350 to 1000 metres deep. The idea was the brainchild of Cambridge educated Adam Englund who intended to install a superstructure in the style of a massive oil rig, with a pair of unobstructed runways. Englund claims to have gathered a team of forty collaborators consisting of ‘pilots, naval architects, maritime engineers and finance types’ to support the project known as O-Plex 2020. The elaborate plans include the main landing platform above four dedicated decks to provide hotels, shops, restaurants, conference centre, research facilities – even a university. The structure has been devised to offer real estate space covering an area of 200 million feet². The idea was fired by the San Diego Airport Authority’s failure to find a suitable site to build a new land based airport. At the time Englund said: “the offshore option is the best and apparently the only viable one for San Diego.” A number of experts agreed that the plan was workable, among them an oceanographer who believed ‘a floating airport is every bit as achievable as putting a man on the moon.’ The project of course also has its critics who consider the idea to be more delusionary than visionary.
