Introduction

From early designs of the kingdom, up to designs at the end of the 90's, we  had an airport on an island within the protective wall of the kingdom. This gave us a lot of problems, including its positioning so as to avoid nuisance from noise, safety concerns, the physical size of the island needed being fitted within the spiral and the preference to both take off and land fairly directly into the wind. As soon as you positioned it near to one of the outer walls you had the problem of air turbulence as you did if you put it too far forward.

We also looked at designs based around two or more islands supporting it. Over time the deigns involved larger and more substantial islands and in some ways the problems of scale were reduced, but at the same time we switched from an airport able to take smaller planes that would come from Bermuda or the Azores, to looking at taking full sized planes and therefore needed to both have a larger runway and the feeling was that we should have two runways so a problem with one does not make a plane make a 1000 mile detour to the next nearest airport.

Moving it to form a tail

With the increase in scale and technologies developing that would mean islands of the size we are considering could be constructed so as to stand free in the ocean, the interest in various places around the world in adding a sea based airport and the increase in demand we could see, we looked again at the airport as an opportunity and this lead to it being redesigned as a complete unit that would sit behind and outside the main kingdom.

Current ideas

The current design is two large island units that are connected together and sit directly behind the kingdom.

The final dimensions are still being considered but we are looking at them being around 5km long, each wide enough for a plane to safely land and taxi ways for planes to get in and out. Shallow ramps would allow the planes to go down and come back out of the floor under, where passengers and goods would be changed. 

Construction would be by floating a number off units into position and joining them up. Pneumatic platforms are one option although a solid structure is still being actively considered.

Lower floors would contain storage room for yachts, and lifting/moving equipment to pick them out of the ocean and move them to storage, effectively a car park for yachts. Quite a few marinas have similar arrangements. Larger craft would tie up between the two units or on the outside of the units. 

The section therefore between the two airport units would be the sea port.

The two airport units would be roughly similar in design allowing duplication, although normally one would be used for larger planes and one for private planes.

The two units would be connected together under the water well below the depth of ships, and at the kingdom end. Additional wall units may be needed to deflect the sea along from the walls and directly past the rear units.

The bulk of the islands mean that other uses are possible for much of the space, and it suggested that OTEC generators and hydrogen splitting and storage should also be at the rear of these units. Oil in the form of fuel for planes and ships would also be held, but not used within the kingdom.

The surface of these islands would be kept clear, the control tower being located at the top of the rear wall of the kingdom.

The aircraft will come in to land over the ocean and when taking off will do so banking slightly to not fly over the kingdom. It has been suggested that each unit could have two runways that crossed, one allowing landing directly into the wind and the other take off nearly into the wind but pointing towards the outside of the island. This would also allow a plane to get into take off position while another is landing, and also avoid hard banking immediately after takeoff. 

A catcher device that would remove the wings and retain the fuselage in a tunnel containing foam to deaden the impact and water and foam to avoid any fire has been suggested for last minute aborted takeoffs as an alternative to crashing into the ocean, and a simpler device containing a wire catcher than allows entry to the ocean but quick recovery, however there are very many airports that have take offs over the ocean and such devices to our knowledge are not provided. This and other safely concerns still have to be fully discussed.

Within the lower floors would also be immigration control, and the security people who looked at who was to enter the kingdom, removing those who failed to act reasonably. Some sections of these islands could have controlled access or no access from other sections providing security.

Repair facilities for both yachts and aircraft would be included.

Water boats and taxis, as well as kingdom goods craft would enter the kingdom through the wall from the port area.

Intermediate stage approach

While we have an idea as to how the eventual airport may look, we are also considering the option of a staged approach. This approach presents the option to have a landing platform made of two units, forming a single runway, later a half length unit would be built at an airport island and one of these initial platforms would be used behind to form the second half of the runway. From that point a number of development options are available.

The floating platform would have vertical legs, and at the bottom of each two buoyancy chambers one that would be under the water below wave height, and one on the surface, the ones below the water could form a single structure or be laced up in some way to present a box structure. The advantage of this design is that the runway is completely clear of the ocean, while the legs being small allow waves to pass through and is therefore stable. 

Similar concepts are used within the MOB (USA mobile offshore base) project detailed on the VLFS page, and there are illustrations of several designs.   

Another option would be a platform sitting high over long thin pneumatic legged system. 

Other options is to develop a sausage approach so the airport is formed not as a single structure but as a sausage of islands, each stabilized, allowing a combination of designs and uses that can be developed and enlarged over time by changing single units. For this to be practical, or the MOB project referred to above, platforms and islands must be able to be made that are stable and connections between each sufficiently firm, or have floating platforms, that they act for the aircraft on the surface as a single structure. 

Ideas from elsewhere.

Within the history page, above left we look at early plans to build sea based airports before it was possible to get across the Atlantic in one step, and other historic ideas.

VLFS also above left, stands for Very Long Floating Structures, and looks at an existing project that has built a floating airport. The model built so far is large enough to land planes on being 1000m long and varying in width from 60m to 120m. It is about a quarter if the size of a full sized unit. The model has shown in sheltered water that a very long and simple structure can be built and is very stable and presented no problems to land on. We have links to other sites that will allow you to investige more.

Within our page labeled Pneumatic, we have explanations and links to sites that show how a very large, long stable platform can be constructed, and this again has links to sites looking at using this technology to build floating airports.

Currently there are very many projects being proposed all over the world for floating airports, many are in bays or estuaries but some are in the sea. Some you will find from links from the VLFS or Pneumatic pages, and if you want to find more try entering floating airport into a search engine.

The airport started off being the part of the New Atlantis Floating Kingdom project that was thought by many to be impractical, and was for many years a topic constantly presented as a reason to question the whole project. In recent years with Megafloat now made and tested, and a large number of others in very many countries around the world suggesting practical designs of floating airports without any sea wall, this has now become a part of the Floating Kingdom project that can be shown to be perfectly practical, and being the largest island proposed so far, also would indicate that all others are equally practical. 

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Last updated: October 09, 2002.