Sea-Dromes

New Idea for Sea Travel

Some day—not too far away—there will be aeroplane services connecting Australia and New Zealand with the Pacific Islands. A new aviation devel opment, to be tested shortly, therefore is interesting.

At Delaware Bay, on the eastern seaboard of the United States, a sea drome is being constructed. As the name implies, this structure is a float ing aerodrome or landing platform for aeroplanes. It is the invention of Edward R. Armstrong, president of the Armstrong Seadrome Development Company, and upon completion the first one, which is to be named “Lang ley,” will be towed out to a point approximately half-way between New York and Hamilton, Bermuda.

Displacing 28,000 tons, of which 17,500 are steel, the “Langley,” when on deep-sea duty and with all the water ballast in place, will have a dis placement of round about 50,000 tons.

The landing deck, raised 80 feet above the water level, will be 1,100 feet long and 180 feet wide. Incor porated in the seadrome will be han gars for refuelling and servicing aero planes, as well as accommodation for passengers, run upon hotel lines.

The idea underlying this project is the establishment of an airway across the Atlantic, which is to be accom plished by the permanent anchoring of eight seadromes at regular inter vals, approximately 350 miles apart, thus breaking an Atlantic flight up into a series of comparatively short flights.

The inventor of this ingenious device has ambitious plans for linking up all the continents, and on his outline chart of the world proposes to place three seadromes between San Fran cisco and Honolulu, two on different routes between Hawaii and Wake Island, two others by way of Guam to the Philippines, and another be tween Australia and New Zealand.

The experiment with the “Langley” seadrome, about mid-summer 1932, may mark the opening of a new epoch in air travel.