Monday answer
Frederick was on the runway to his star. Today�s trivia was the airport made of ice. Seriously. This was to be corralled, anchored, �carved�, and serve as an intermediate stop for aircraft on their way to Europe and or the Far East. The plans were for it to be 2000 feet long, 200 feet wide, be 50 feet off the surface of the ocean and be hollow to store and house all the essentials required for a seaborne airport. The walls were to be 40 feet thick (to fend off storms and torpedoes,) and be built of Pykrete a frozen mixture of wood pulp and water. The idea came from Inuit who built igloos stronger and far less subject to melting by including organic matter in the blocks they used.
A leading authority and proponent was Edward A. Armstrong a Canadian born engineer. What he proposed was a storm proof, flight deck airport, refueling station, spaced at 500 mile intervals which were the range of aircraft of the time. His idea was to build it of steel. He even built a scale model and tested it in the Chesapeake. He said it would survive 280 mile winds and 144 foot waves. Geoffery Pyke was the person who supported the ice airport and a project titled Project Habbakuk. Even the Germans thought about a similar project.
The idea both as a frozen airport and as a floating platform (not unlike the modern oil platform) was to get passengers by plane to international locations by having interim stops. In the 1920�s the idea was a reasonable extension of aviation thought, but when it got to the people who really knew what was possible in the future, the idea was trashed, mostly because of expense, but also because projected aircraft (including lighter than air craft, and seaplane clippers had engines that were capable of making the journey without stopovers. Admittedly, what was available by �early adopters� needed interim landing places, but the confidence of "anything is possible" of the conservative, the saner, the futurists, was why spend money on something that would be obsolete before it could be built. Anyway an ice platform that was to be built was envisioned to be too much of a good thing as it would displace 2.2 million tons or about 26 times the displacement of the �Queen Elizabeth� the largest ship of that time. In addition, there was no ice mass anywhere that anyone knew about, that could me made to break loose, and if there was would fissures in the block itself destroy it once being "carved"?
Anyway tests were made. Scale models built and tested. But it was well past the era for it to be built. Even WWII when such a thing might have been worth it for air recon of wolf packs was rejected in favor of long(er) range aircraft like the PBY.
As for revival, Japan is testing the idea for a seaborne airport for their crowded cities. China has investigated seaborne ports to increase their coastal boundary limits. The U.S. has stayed with carriers for the time being--at least they are mobile and are considered sovereign U.S. territory wherever they are.
Check out Mr. Pyke, or Habbakuk if additional interest.