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RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] THE DEEP FLIGHT AVIATOR



We have proven underwater flight with the world’s first full ocean depth capable (37,000 feet) submersible, Deep Flight Challenger

I just quickly calculated that to be 1,121 atmospheres or( 16,481 psi) at depth,...mind boggling! Multiply that by vessel surface area and,... wow!

Joe

From: brenthartwig@hotmail.com
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] THE DEEP FLIGHT AVIATOR
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:47:57 -0700

Jay,

"Please review the emails and note that anyone with any submersible experience has repeatedly told you that dive brakes are a poor idea.

You misspeak for the group.  Those people that have been operating submersibles for some time and those with submarine experience strive for KISS (and they keep telling you this) while those just building and/or no experience love redundancy and extra safety features. "


You seem to be missing the point of a open flowing discussion. Just saying some thing is a bad idea with no reason and/or very limited reason why you believe it to be so, and then expect the discussion to  just die because you don't have any creative juices you wish to put to task, is not a open flowing discussion. Just because the Navy didn't want to continue research on some thing and ran into trouble with it, doesn't mean the problem can not be solved in the future by any number of people or groups.

Militarys around the world and through out history have consistently resisted change of tactics and technology. Much of the time they had to be beaten a number of times by there opponents better tactics and/or technology before they would seriously consider change. Some times companies couldn't get funding for the development of a concept they had for a military weapon. So the built and tested it them selfs with there own funds to prove the design. Then later the military might buy it. Even once they have some new weapon finished and tested, they drag there feet to implement it. So using the militaries of the world as a bench mark of what can or can be done successfully is not the best plan. That said, we can still learn a lot from them, but I don't consider them the final word on what can, or can't be done.


If the K boats are the mark of what fits roughly into the KISS principle then the Deep Flight Aviator, Challenger, Super Falcon, Marion Hypersub Fathom, Cliffs R300,
Uboat Worx subs, Alvin, S201, Bioniorca, and many more don't fit in as being KISS sub over all.

Please stop using the KISS principle as a personal insult. The KISS principle is a fun and very useful concept that is having all the fun part taken out of it by you. Why didn't you tell Dean to KISS, when you didn't like his drag shoot concept?  I believe it was because you know you wouldn't get away with it.

The Deep Flight Aviator was not designed just for one purpose only. They wanted to cruise like a whale shark or a dolphin along side them and along the sea floor. One of the primary objectives was for it to be hydrobatic and be able to perform a roll about its axis 0-360 degrees and in doing so needed a five point harness. Many other things were put into the Aviator for testing ideas then just going deep.

The Deep Flight Super Falcon is going to be, in many cases a rich mans toy.

"Deep Flight Update from Graham Hawkes - August 2008 "Some twenty years after my first suspicion that submersibles were stuck in a dreary chrysalis stage and needed to spread wings, we have achieved our long term goals. We have proven underwater flight with the world’s first full ocean depth capable (37,000 feet) submersible, Deep Flight Challenger, built for the late adventurer Steve Fossett. And, we have evolved the art of underwater flight for its own sake through three generations of pure fliers. For me, the butterfly has finally fully emerged… Deep Flight Super Falcon, the first production underwater flier designed specifically for private owners."


http://www.deepflight.com/


http://www.google.com/patents?id=j197AAAAEBAJ&dq=graham+hawkes+submersible
"Abstract
A winged submersible having a neutral to positive buoyancy utilizes an inverted wing structure to allow the wings to create downward force on the submersible in response to forward movement. Internal pressure pods are provided to allow an occupant to maintain a recumbent sitting position. The pressure pods are maintained at a constant pressure with life support systems, while the remainder of the hull is not pressurized. Acrylic domes are positioned to allow access to each internal pressure pod and when closed, the occupant's head is positioned within the center of the dome for optimal optics under water. Wings with adjustable control surfaces provide the submersible with the ability to roll about a longitudinal axis 0–360 degrees in either direction."
Patent number: 7131389
Filing date: Jan 22, 2004
Issue date: Nov 7, 2006
Inventor: Graham Hawkes
Primary Examiner: Lars A. Olson
Attorneys: Paul K. Tomita, Dergosits & Noah LLP
Application number: 10/763,041



http://www.incredible-adventures.com/deep_flight1.html


"THE DEEP FLIGHT AVIATOR
Be among the first in the
world to experience a
totally new dimension of
flight…underwater.
Hundreds have traveled
to space. Few have
experienced the incredible
thrill of a Deep Flight
Adventure.
The Deep Flight Aviator is a new class of hydrobatic submersible
craft, built to fully explore underwater flight. Think of conventional
submersibles as slow, bulky, stiff underwater balloons, and the
Deep Flight Aviator as a lightweight, high-powered, composite airframe
with wings, thruster and flight controls. It is similar in configuration
to the USAF A10 and is piloted by two crew. The Deep Flight
Aviator looks like an airplane and flies like an airplane.
THE INVENTOR AND PILOT
The man behind the Deep Flight Aviator is Graham Hawkes, the
inventor of a significant percent of all manned underwater vehicles
ever built for research or industrial use.
“The Aviator is unlike anything in existence, and the underwater experience
is unparalleled. In conventional subs, you perch on a seat;
in the Aviator, you strap tightly into the same five-point harness restraints
used by Indy car racers. Moreover, you will see more! Even
the best of today’s submersibles are equivalent to scouting the jungle
for tigers with a marching band,” says Hawkes. “Traditional submersibles
are noisy and lit up like Christmas trees. Any organism
that can flee, does.”
The Deep Flight Aviator combines the freedom of scuba and the
depth capability and underwater viewing of a submersible with the
low intrusiveness of a stealth submarine. A traditional submersible
must slowly sink down to its desired depth. The battery-propelled
Deep Flight Aviator is “flown” quickly and quietly to its destination."

http://web.archive.org/web/20060321052337/http://www.incredible-adventures.com/deep_flight1.html



Your resident possibility thinker ;)'

Regards,

Szybowski



From: bottomgun@mindspring.com
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Stopping Flaps
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:00:13 -0400

Brent,

You misspeak for the group.  Those people that have been operating submersibles for some time and those with submarine experience strive for KISS (and they keep telling you this) while those just building and/or no experience love redundancy and extra safety features. 

 

Please review the emails and note that anyone with any submersible experience has repeatedly told you that dive brakes are a poor idea.  While on the surface they sound like a great idea (go-cart, bicycle, or car…what about boats?), they don’t work.  You are better to rely on procedure than a mechanical gimmick underwater to avoid a hazard, especially in your typical PSUB.  Speed is hazardous underwater:

1.       Close to the bottom you are going to run into something despite any mechanical or electronic contraption;

2.       Speed will force you out of your operating envelop in a jammed planes causality resulting in a violation of your test/crush depth.

It has been demonstrated that dive brakes and braking chutes have not worked to mitigate these two safety issues.  A five-point safety belt doesn’t do you much good when you are stranded on the bottom, just makes it more difficult to get the body out.

 

Speed was designed into Deep Flight for one reason only and that was to get to a very deep bottom, not for cruising on the bottom.  Graham Hawks recognized that much of the ocean was very deep and most submersibles only penetrated the top veneer.  Alvin took hours to get to an even moderate depth and Graham wanted to return to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, over seven miles down.  He knew he would need a unique vehicle to get there fast and Deep Flight is the proof of concept.  If you can go to the bottom of the Trench it is tough to operate outside of your depth envelop and small propulsion motors were to be used for cruising at a safe speed on the bottom.  Hawks promoted this concept back in the 80s and hasn’t reached it fully yet.

Jay

 

Respectfully,

Jay K. Jeffries

Andros Is., Bahamas

 

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

    - Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC)

 

From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org [mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of Brent Hartwig
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 6:18 PM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Stopping Flaps

 

Greetings Sean,

Your items one thru four, I find to be very sound.  As a general rule, this group tends to love redundant and extra safety features. So having brakes of some sort seem very important/useful/desirable. Braking flaps can be used when on the surface as well. If you have paddled a canoed or kayak much, you will know that you usually can only go as fast as an average K-boat and if you turn your paddle flat you stop very quickly. Of course a canoe is lighter so that just means we need larger flaps, if we want/need to stop that fast.

Having only two seconds to react, as Jon was writing about, many times isn't enough time to do much of any thing. One reason Alec might not of even seen the cable, could be he wasn't looking out the forward port at the time.  Look at how little time and stopping distance we have in a car many times over and over and yet still stop in time.  I was thinking about installing a braking flaps system, that operates much like a cars brakes, with a foot peddle in the same position as a cars, and hydraulic assist, or perhaps a brake lever like used on many cars for there emergency brake, could work very quickly as well. Even if you still hit the boulder, you might of slowed down enough to make the collision far less of a problem.  But that's just me, I like convoluted mechanical means if I can learn from those prototypes how to make them really function properly, or abandon them to explore other ideas.


Have you ever driven a go cart, bicycle, or car that didn't have brakes. It's quite hard unless you stay with in a safe operating envelope, which would be on pretty flat ground, and at very low speeds. So your safe operating envelope will change in a sub if it has good braking flaps and you know how to use them. Of course with a car with no brakes, you usually have some built in collision protection like bumpers, air bags, and seat belts. But you still don't want to hit people and there flower gardens. In are case we don't want to hit nasty rocks, coral reefs, boats, SCUBA divers, etc., etc., etc.....

I plan to have a five point seat belt system installed in my gliding hydrobatic subs, much like those installed in the Bionic Dolphin and Bioniorca. Perhaps I need a air bag system as well. It might be a really bad idea for a air bag to go off in a small sub. My be it would be better to use them on large subs. I would expect a lot of the injures that have a cured to sailer's on subs that have hit some thing, were a result of them not being seated with a seat belt on.

Another possible use for braking flaps is to help you drift with the current, if it's going the same way you are, to save power. 



Your resident possibility thinker ;)'

Regards,
Szybowski

 


Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:46:48 -0600
From: cast55@telus.net
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Stopping Flaps

 Not to make light of the many creative contributions to this discussion, but I can't help but feel like this is an unnecessary solution to a self-imposed problem, much like the guy who lined his car windshield with pillows in case he had a collision from not being able to see correctly due to the gas mask he wore in case of a leak from the gasoline canister strapped in the passenger seat which he carried in case he ran out of fuel.   Sometimes, the solution requires taking a step back and eliminating a problem further up the chain.
 
In the case of submarine collisions, you have two identifiable primary risks:  1) entanglement, and 2) damage.  In the context of the anticipated operating conditions, I can't help but wonder if design effort to reduce entanglement potential by
 
1)  streamlining the hull and superstructure, and minimizing appendages to prevent entanglement or entrapment
2) accomodating impacts to the hull and superstructure by incorporating such features as collision bulkheads, space frames and guards where appropriate
3) implementing better systems to warn of impending collision, including attempts to increase range of visibility, lighting, sonar, etc.
4) defining operating parameters consistent with the vehicle design and anticipated operating conditions to firstly avoid collisions altogether, and where a collision may not be avoided, to enable the vehicle to withstand collision without sustaining critical damage 
 
- are better uses of resources than convoluted mechanical or other means of reducing vehicle momentum on an impending collision, which may represent increased risks from other perspectives.  
 
A common error made in "what if" contingency planning is failing to determine if the "what if" event in question can be avoided (preventative), thus eliminating the requirement for a contingency plan (reactive).
 
Just my $0.02.
 
-Sean
 
 
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