A friend of Tom Swift's was thought to have been murdered over the Atlantic Ocean in an attempt at circling the globe. Tom, partly in memorial and partly because of a need, decides to build a large floating airport out in the middle of the ocean.

To build such an airport requires a very special kind of wood. This wood, called talcap, is imported from the mythical country of Haargoland. There is some trouble getting the wood, but at last Tom gets his wood, figures everything is all right, and goes out to sea to build his airport.

After the airport is built, however, the Haargoland navy shows up and claims the airport for Haargoland, claiming that Tom had no right to take the wood in the first place. Tom then is forced to use his new "soundless wireless" to contact the U. S. Government, which promptly dispatches a large plane and a Navy vessel to the scene.

The Navy vessel, arriving first, promptly forces the Haargolanders to surrender. Before the United States government can take official responsibility for the airbase, however, certain ceremonies have to take place; the men who have to perform these ceremonies are on board the airplane, which gets trapped in a tremendous mid-Atlantic storm.

Can Tom Swift's Ocean Airport stand this ultimate test and save the planeload of diplomats? His Ocean Airport faces its ultimate test!

If they were as loud as Tom claimed, then a quiet wireless would be a nice thing to have -- especially if you wanted to send messages in secret, as Tom did. The invention would hardly be earth shattering, but it would definitely find its place. How he managed this feat is unknown. There are a few vague references to shortening tubes and things like that, but, as usual for his later inventions, no details are supplied.

It is needless for me to say that this invention has found its place in modern life -- modern radio senders are not noisy, loud or irritating. I, to be quite honest, never knew that they were loud, noisy or irritating in the first placeÖ

The Airport was not one large, prefabricated piece, as you can see from the dustjacket. What Tom did was make 36 small perfectly square pieces that, when Tom's giant magnet was activated, would come together to form one large airport. The airport itself was actually manufactured in the middle of the ocean -- the supplies were brought in on board an old Navy vessel and Tom assembled it on-site.

Talcap wood was needed to make the ocean buoyant enough to stay afloat on the ocean. It seemed to possess some rather interesting properties -- it was light, strong, very buoyant, and only grew in revolution-prone Central American countries.

The reason the airport had to be assembled in discreet sections was because the airport was so large that, if it consisted of one large piece, it would be destroyed by the first gale to come its way. This I can heartily believe -- any old, grizzled sailor can tell story after story about the huge force a storm at sea can pack.

It seems that Tom Swift does not have a monopoly on this idea. In the Ted Scott book "Rescued in the Clouds", it mentions the idea of an "ocean airport" and demonstrates the great need for one. Evidently this was a common idea at the time, and quite necessary too -- as dangerous as crossing the ocean was, it would definitely help to have stopping place somewhere.

The great Ocean Airport, while being quite feasible, was, as we all know, never built. The reason is quite simple: aerospace technology has progressed far beyond what anyone in the 1930's would have believed, and nowadays a plane that doesn't have enough range to cross the ocean with some fuel to spare shouldn't be attempting the flight in the first place. Storms that use to be so devastating to earlier pilots can now be entirely missed simply by flying a few thousand feet above the storm. The ocean, for the most part, has been licked.

Update! Some time ago I received an e-mail from someone regarding the soundless wireless. I thought it was very interesting, so after getting permission to post it I am posting it here. Here it is!