AERONAUTICS: Seadrome

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Mr. Armstrong has long planned to anchor his first full-size seadrome midway between Manhattan and Bermuda. Studying hydrographic charts of the region he figured that there must exist a high spot on the ocean floor about where he would like it. He asked Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams to send a survey ship to check his calculations. He was right. The survey showed a little plateau just 400 miles from Manhattan and 375 miles from Bermuda, in an almost direct line. It is six miles long by four miles wide and only two miles below sea level, whereas the surrounding ocean is three to four miles deep. The difference in depth means thousands of dollars of savings to Mr. Armstrong and his financiers on the 3½ inch steel cable he is having laid to hold his floating island to its anchors. Those anchors are to be huge round bobbins which will dig into red clay of the submerged plateau and hold the seadrome from drifting. By next fall and before Bermuda's 1930-31— tourist season begins Mr. Armstrong expects to have the Langley completed and anchored in place, ready to receive tourist planes and to entertain travelers on man's newest conquest of an element. As the operation of the Langley makes money, he will (and he has the money in provision to do so) construct eight similar seadromes to be strung 375 miles apart between the 35th and 40th parallels, north latitude, between Long Island and Plymouth. The 375 miles is an easy jump for any plane. Hence the project presages safe and convenient airplane passage across the ocean, direct competition with both sea ships and air ships. Flying time between the continents, Mr. Armstrong calculates, will be as low as 20 hrs.

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