Airfloat Gets Shout-out in New Yorker Magazine

Airfloat was mentioned in the March 3 issue of The New Yorker magazine in a sprawling 18-page article about the experimental ITER thermonuclear reactor under construction in Southern France. The article’s author, Raffi Khatchadourian, visited General Atomics, a San Diego-based nuclear contractor tasked with creating the reactor’s central solenoid, sometimes called the “backbone” of the $20 billion machine.

The solenoid is comprised of six superconducting modules, each weighing approximately 200 tons. General Atomics will use a custom-built Airfloat transporter to the move the magnets from workstation to workstation in its 60,000-sq.-ft. workspace. According to the article’s author, the machine will “slide [the magnets] like a shopping cart” across the facility’s super-reinforced floor. The article also notes that aircraft and locomotives currently are built on similar Airfloat equipment.

Click here to read a feature newspaper article about the Airfloat platform and the historic, multinational ITER project.