George Washington Air Junction

The George Washington Air Junction was a proposed airport for Fairfax County, Virginia. It was designed to be the world's largest airport, larger than those of New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Chicago, and Philadelphia combined. It was to have the world's longest runways and facilities to accommodate dirigible airships like the Zeppelin. It never opened, and the land was eventually seized.

The George Washington Air Junction airport was a project of entrepreneur Henry Woodhouse. He was an aviation enthusiast and represented himself as president of the Aerial League of America, although there is no evidence that such an entity existed. He believed that dirigibles were the aircraft of the future, so as a real estate investor, and entrepreneur he started planning in 1919 to buy up farms in the Hybla Valley of Fairfax County, Virginia (USA). He bought some 1,500–2,000 acres (610–810 ha) in the 1920s from different land owners. His idea was to turn the dairy farms into the world's largest airport, with the longest runways anywhere in the world. The airport was to be an international base for all kinds of aircraft.

Woodhouse called his future intended airport the "George Washington Air Junction" because it was on land once owned by George Washington. He was hoping to make the land Washington, D.C.’s commercial national airport. He envisioned the airport as the largest in the world, complete with fields for Zeppelin flights to land after they had crossed the Atlantic from Europe. Woodhouse thought that the dirigibles had potential as aircraft for the future. He developed plans in 1929 to build a runway 7,500 feet (2,300 m) long—the world's longest.

The Herald Times wrote up an article in 1938 on the Washington Air Junction site, complete with a high altitude picture taken from an airplane looking south that was illustrated with the intended layout. The picture showed a plan for three of the world's largest runways, a hangar, and an administration building. It claimed that Hybla Valley was the largest airport site available near Washington, D.C. It explained that the layout geography of the 3,800 acres (1,500 ha) of land three miles (5 km) south of the city of Alexandria was as flat as a tabletop. It further explained that it was near one of the busiest highways in northeastern United States. The idea was planted in this newspaper article that this could become larger than any airport in the world.

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