Saturday, August 13
    Trending
    • Even airline employees are having trouble finding a seat home from Europe this summer
    • Tickets for Japan’s Ghibli Park now on sale
    • The surprising hobby that’s drawing 70-year-olds to the beach
    • Discover the Barossa Valley
    • Air travel system is ‘very brittle,’ Buttigieg says. DOT wants to hear traveler complaints
    • The loss of Chinese tourists is devastating destinations – from Bangkok to Bicester
    • Eight of Vietnam’s hottest new hotels
    • 2GO brings back Php99 Sea Sale
    Travel Advice
    • Features
    • News
    • Travel
    • Destinations
    • Lifestyle
    • Food & Drink
    • Advice
    • Videos
    Travel Advice
    Home»Travel»Everglades Jetport: The ‘world’s greatest airport’ that never was
    Travel

    Everglades Jetport: The ‘world’s greatest airport’ that never was

    April 12, 2021No Comments5 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Everglades Jetport: The 'world's greatest airport' that never was
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    (CNN) — It was supposed to be the world’s largest airport, a glamorous intercontinental hub for supersonic airliners with six runways and high-speed rail links to surrounding cities. But today, it’s little more than an airstrip in the middle of nowhere.

    The Everglades Jetport, as it was called when the project launched in 1968, started its life right at the end of the Golden Age of air travel, when plane cabins were filled with the smoke of cigars and the clinking of silverware.

    Concorde was about to make its first flight, while Boeing was working on an even larger and faster supersonic passenger plane, the 2707.

    With a high projected demand for faster-than-sound travel, South Florida emerged as an ideal spot for a hub, because the dreaded “sonic boom” that made these planes unwelcome guests inland could happen harmlessly over the open ocean.

    But it wasn’t to be.

    Commercial aviation was about to enter a different age, and environmental concerns led to the cancellation of the grand plan for the Everglades Jetport after only one runway had been built.

    Now, that lone runway functions both as a training ground and a nostalgic reminder of a dream that never materialized.

    Swampland

    Today, the airport is known as Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport and is operated by the Miami Dade Aviation Department, which manages four other airports in the area, including Miami International — the third largest in the US for international passenger traffic.

    It’s very different from what the Everglades Jetport — which was also known as the Big Cypress Swamp Jetport — was meant to be. “Some people think it’s abandoned, but it’s not,” says Lonny Craven, who manages the airfield for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. “Right now, due to restrictions, we only have it open from eight o’clock in the morning till 5:30 at night.”

    In the original plan, the Jetport was supposed to be five times the size of New York’s JFK and handle futuristic supersonic airliners carrying up to 300 passengers each.

    To build it, the Dade County Port Authority purchased 39 square miles of uninhabited swamp land, 36 miles west of the Miami business district and just six miles north of the Everglades National Park.

    “They wanted to put it smack dab in the middle between Monroe County, Dade County, Collier County and Palm Beach County, for easy access,” says Craven.

    A planned 1,000-foot-wide road and rail corridor would link the Jetport to both the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.

    But environmental concerns began to arise soon after construction started.

    A 1969 report stated that the project would “destroy the South Florida ecosystem and thus the Everglades National Park.”

    Backed by local residents and activists, the report led to the Everglades Jetport Pact, which in 1970 brought all construction to a halt.

    “The joke was that they were paving the runways on the backs of alligators,” says Craven.

    Picture taken in 1969 showing the full-scale mockup of the Boeing 2027 SST, the first American supersonic transport (SST) project, in the Boeing Developmental Center in Seattle. The Boeing 2707 was supposed to be America's answer to the Concorde. In March 1971, despite the project's strong support by the administration of President Richard Nixon, the U.S. Senate rejected further funding and the SST project was canceled on May 20, 1971. / AFP / - (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)

    This is a full-scale mockup of the Boeing 2027 SST, pictured in the Boeing Developmental Center in Seattle in 1969. The 2707 was supposed to be America’s answer to the Concorde.

    AFP/Getty Images

    Touch and go

    In 1971, the Boeing 2707 project was canceled before a prototype was even finished, and the dream of a US-built supersonic passenger plane died with it.

    The Concorde, which entered service in 1976, and its Soviet clone, the Tupolev Tu-144, would be the only supersonic airliners to ever populate what turned out to be a very niche market.

    At that point, rather than trying to relocate the Jetport, the whole idea was just abandoned.

    The Tupolev Tu-144 operated from 1968 to 1999.

    The Tupolev Tu-144 operated from 1968 to 1999.

    NASA

    What had been built of the airfield never opened to passenger traffic, but its only runway — which is 10,499 feet long — became popular with pilots in training, who took advantage of the remote location and the absence of any other structure in the area. “It was used a lot through the 1970s, the 1980s, and probably into the mid 1990s, by airlines to go out there and do touch and goes,” says Craven.

    A “touch and go” happens when a plane lands and takes off again before coming to a complete stop, and it’s a common way for pilots to quickly accumulate practice for these crucial aspects of flying. “With the advent of flight simulators and the high cost of jet fuel, the usage decreased, but we still get practice military flights, mostly from the US Coast Guard, and small private aircraft.”

    Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport is what remains of the Jetport dream.

    Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport is what remains of the Jetport dream.

    Courtesy of Miami-Dade Aviation Department

    No landings

    Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport — whose airport code is the catchy TNT — does not have a terminal, just an office inside a 2,000-square-foot trailer.

    The site is usually manned by four employees who perform maintenance and also provide security, but there is no firefighting or refueling equipment, and proper landings are not permitted outside of an emergency.

    “We heard rumors that if the Space Shuttle had to make an emergency landing, it could go there,” says Craven.

    There have been attempts to use the facility beyond touch and goes. The runway has seen some high-speed car racing, because it allows fast cars to reach their top speeds. And there was a plan to organize an air show, but that would have required widening the road to the airfield to support incoming traffic, and no new construction is permitted.

    Today, the area surrounding the airport is part of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and home to wildlife such as alligators, deer, herons and bears.

    The area that the airport also owns, but is undeveloped swamp, is 26,000 acres. That’s how big it could have been. “Miami International Airport is 3,320 acres,” says Craven.

    “It was supposed to be the airport for tomorrow.”

    This article was originally published by Cnn.com. Read the original article here.
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleEverything you need to know before Disneyland reopens on April 30
    Next Article How American Airlines takes planes out of storage

    Related Posts

    Tickets for Japan’s Ghibli Park now on sale

    August 13, 2022

    Air travel system is ‘very brittle,’ Buttigieg says. DOT wants to hear traveler complaints

    August 13, 2022

    Eight of Vietnam’s hottest new hotels

    August 12, 2022
    Signup for our Newsletter
    Advert
    Cryptocurrency wallet
    Categories
    • Advice
    • Destinations
    • Features
    • Food & Drink
    • Lifestyle
    • News
    • Travel
    • Videos
    Signup for our Newsletter
    Advert
    Managed Wordpress Hosting
    Useful Links
    • Contact us
    • About us
    • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Cookie Policy (US)
    • Cookie Policy (EU)
    ARCHIVES
    © 2022 Designed and Powered by JL Digital webbyrå.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Manage Cookie Consent
    To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
    Functional Always active
    The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
    Preferences
    The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
    Statistics
    The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
    Marketing
    The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
    Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
    View preferences
    {title} {title} {title}