Supersonic Jet Set May Land at Sea (1967)
As I type these words from the relative comfort of a chair 30,000 feet in the sky, I can't help but marvel at the incredible advancements aviation has made in the last hundred years. Being connected to the internet is but just one thing airline passengers now take for granted as humanity's ability to move from place to place and communicate has not only become easier but, probably most importantly, less expensive.
Today we have an image from the April 23, 1967 Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA) that accompanied an article imagining a "sea airport" or Sea Sky Terminal (SST) of the future. Some of the benefits listed in the article appear below.
Proponents of the dream terminal say that, among other things, it would:
1. Eliminate the danger of huge aircraft landing in congested areas.
2. Eliminate the noise associated with major airports.
3. Eliminate freeway and street congestion caused by ever-increasing numbers of air travelers trying to get in and out of major terminals.
4. Eliminate property problems, such as occurred in Los Angeles recently when that city had to purchase 400 omes in order to make room for a new runway for International Airport.
The sea airport of the future, engineers say, could be served by underwater subways and high-speed airfoil vessels. Helicopters, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and flying buses would link the seagoing airstrip with satellite airports in other cities, by-passing the freeways.