The Failed Floating Airport That Built Oil Rigs

Before planes could fly across oceans easily, an engineer designed giant floating airports to sit in the middle of the sea. Though his mid-ocean runways never took off, his structural design became the blueprint for modern oil rigs.

In 1927, Edward Armstrong proposed a series of seadromes, which were massive floating platforms meant to serve as refueling stations for transatlantic flights. While aviation technology advanced too quickly for these stations to become reality, the engineering used to anchor these structures was groundbreaking. Today, offshore oil companies use these very principles to keep massive drilling platforms steady in deep water. It is a classic case of an invention serving a completely different purpose than its creator ever imagined.