Among the sinkholes, the snakes, and the swampland that comprises the Everglades lies a 10,500-foot
runway rivaling those at LAX or JFK.
It’s not the best place for building, well, anything, unless you’re opening another
Gatorland or sinkhole-themed theme park.
But somehow, this runway is the only remnant of Florida’s failed plan to build the world’s
biggest airport.
With six runways and even a monorail connected to cities along the eastern seaboard, the
Everglades Jetport was planned to be the “airport of tomorrow” that would whisk travelers
to their flight with no need for a car.
The site’s expansive runways could support 300-seat jets while its terminals boasted
luxurious smoking lounges and expansive bars for weary travelers—a destination in and
of itself for the rich and famous planned to be five times the size of JFK.
But why build what was supposed to be the world’s largest airport in the middle of
an inhospitable jungle?
Originally, the jetport came on the heels of rapid urbanization in southern Florida.
After World War II, Miami began exploring the construction of a new airport to capitalize
on the lucrative airline industry in an era of “fancy travel” replete with cigar smoking,
booze drinking, and ham carving.
At the time, commercial airplanes only traveled about 500 miles or 800 kilometers per hour,
owing, of course, to the relatively limited speed that pilots could pedal.
But after Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier by MacGyver-ing a rocket
engine to a pair of wings, engineers began developing planes that used increased thrust
and power to maintain supersonic speeds.
Heralded as the future of flight, airlines and manufacturers alike saw an opportunity
in supersonic airplanes to shrink the world through lightning-fast travel, with Boeing
developing a commercial supersonic plane with the 2707 program, and Concorde hitting the
scene with backing from British and French companies.
Now, like most good things from the 1960s, supersonic planes did have a big drawback.
But unlike most things from the 1960s, that drawback wasn’t institutionalized racism
or this damn font; it was sonic booms.
These booms can be heard thousands of feet on the ground below supersonic planes, which
obviously created problems for those unfortunate enough to live beneath supersonic testing—a
group that happened to include most of the United States.
During this period, the Federal Aviation Administration received 40,000 complaints about sonic booms
from people who lived underneath tests, as these noises cracked glass, killed farm animals,
and ruined countless bluegrass albums.
Even before the FAA banned overland supersonic flight in 1973, officials wanted to find a
rural location that could support trans-oceanic flights without fear of local residents pounding
down their doors from rocket-propelled takeoffs or sonic boomy flights.
So, it was here: 39 square miles of condemned swampland that made the dream of high-speed
luxury travel possible.
For once, the Everglades’ insanely high crocodile-to-people ratio came in handy, as
its plethora of inhospitable swamplands were unlikely to ever have a permanent human population.
The area’s location midway between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic meant that airlines
could offer flights under 3 hours to South America or Europe—the perfect bait for rich
people to visit a swamp other than Washington, D.C.
But then, as they always do, some scientist went and ruined everything.
The Nixon administration commissioned Dr Luna Leopold, son of famed writer Aldo Leopold,
to research the jetport’s environmental impacts before granting federal funds for
its construction.
Leopold and his findings spelled the beginning of the end for the Everglades Jetport.
He found the airport would destroy the Everglades, which presented an exciting opportunity to
finally kill Florida’s dreaded Skunk Ape, but was ultimately concluded to be a bad thing.
Following the report’s release and ensuing alligator strike, interior secretary Rogers
Morton opposed the jetport’s construction.
Without federal funding, the project was effectively dead in the water, and by 1970, construction
ended with only one runway completed.
Boeing soon after canceled the 2707 program, which convinced most US airlines that supersonic
flight wasn’t commercially viable.
Though the Concorde ran transatlantic flights from 1976 to 2003, supersonic transport soon
faded into obscurity.
Since then, the sole runway has played host to exotic car drag races and now operates
as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport to help pilots practice takeoffs and
landings.
In 1973, The New York Times even reported the runway had “flight a minute” traffic
from commercial, military, and private pilots practicing their takeoffs and landings.
But today’s runway bears little evidence of the idealism that created it, with a working
staff of just four operating out of a trailer who see a small number of military and private
pilots as the surrounding jungle steadily encroaches upon it.
Though it could support emergency landings—with one official noting the strip’s length and
location would make it ideal for an emergency space shuttle landing site—it only regularly
operates from 8am to 5:30pm for pre-scheduled practices.
Even if supersonic planes make a comeback—which certain chronically-online nerds claim that
they might—it’s unlikely that this world-class runway will be used for anything besides teaching
pilots how to not crash planes on landing.
And whether you’re building a supersonic jetport or searching for Florida’s famed
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