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
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
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 Ca ...
.
* 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 territorie ...
and worked in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
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 River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
as an automotive and aviation engineer.
* In 1916 he went to
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
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
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
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
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 ...
, 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 opposin ...
. 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 ...
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
*Se ...
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
See also
* Aircraft carrier
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 ...
* Lily and Clover
''Lily'' and ''Clover'' were two experimental floating airfields tested towards the end of the Second World War by the British Admiralty.
Based on a similar concept to the Mulberry harbour used for the Normandy landings in 1944, ''Lily'' and ...
* Project Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were ...
* ''F.P.1
''F.P.1'' ( ger, F.P.1 antwortet nicht) is a 1932 German film directed by Karl Hartl. The film was based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Kurt Siodmak. The plot concerned a permanent air station in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The fil ...
'', 1937 film
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, to ...
'', November 27, 1933
Seadrome
''History Detectives
''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, 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 ...
'', 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
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
'', February 1934 (archived at modernmechanix.com)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Edward
1876 births
1955 deaths
Members of the Early Birds of Aviation
People from Guelph