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Grand Greetings Subdudes, I think I landed on another juicy one. I just started to read in more detail, a Simon Lake patent I thought at first was showing a simple retractable wheel arrangement. But this patent #650,758 obtained in 1897 by Simon Lake, is loaded with different submarine innovations. One of which includes a escape buoy system embodiment that does the same basic thing, in the same basic way as the design Kittredge and partner received a patent for 64 years later in 1959. I see this sort of thing a lot in my patent research. The patent examiners seem to be unable to see and/or find over lapping patents, and then only allow the new details of the designs be claimed by the inventors. I don't even see that Lake's patents is referenced by the newer Kittredge patent. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zhlLAAAAEBAJ&dq=581,213 There are three pods that can be human occupied and used to leave and enter the sub while it is submerged. These pods are also used for observation platforms. The one escape-buoy pod that Kittredge's sphere escape pod is most like, has a side access door instead of a bottom access hatch like on the Kittredge design. Also the other two observation cages (as Lake calls them) /pods are mounted to lifting arms and able to be raised and lowered by means of a cable that is attached to a hand crank, that is mounted to a rotating thru hull in the side of the observation cage, in Lake's patent. The sub can also be operated in part from the observation cages that are attached to arms. The sub can be steered and the torpedoes fired from either of the observation cages. Item #149 in Lake's pattens is a air pipe that acts as a cable for the escape-buoy, fresh air for the occupant of the buoy, and a means to communicate verbally with those in the main interior of the sub. The design Lake was proposing, was only large enough for one man to escape to the surface at a time. I'm wasn't sure how Lake planed to be able to rotate the escape-buoy to be able to align the side hatch to it's corresponding counter part in the docking well. But reading in more detail, I found he's using a circular rack mounted to the exterior perimeter base of the buoy that is engaged with a pinion that is mounted to a crank shaft that goes thru a stuffing-box (sealed rotating thru hull) in the wall of the well, and then to a hand crank, to rotated the buoy until they have proper alignment for the securing bolts for locking the buoy to the well hatch flange. I don't see how this would work unless the mating hatch flanges are curved. I wonder if Lake installed one of more of these in his subs, and how well they worked if he did. This directly relates to me, since I'm working on a curved flange interior door design for a large hyperbaric chamber, with the main hull tube mounted vertically, and with the door rolling to one side by hanging on roller wheels that run in a curved track. Hard part for me is matching the curves of the mating steel flanges when we roll them, so I won't have trouble getting the door to seal. We will likely use a soft double lipped U type seal, like used on the interior doors of many US Navy subs, and perhaps others. This is also a lot like how I would need to match the inner curved plate to install a removable panel for a annular VBT like is installed in the KSS like I was working on here in this CAD assembly. http://cid-5085d10eb6afe47c.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Annular%20VBT%20Concept%20Assembly%20Model If the hose twist when the buoy is at the surface, then I was thinking that the observer in the buoy would need a compass to be able to relay a correct direction of an item of interest. The hatch on top of Lake's escape-buoy, of which he calls a hood, looks a lot like the hatches on Freya and Kraka. It's also interesting to note that Lake calls the small viewports that are mounted in the escape-buoy and observation cages hoods, bull's-eyes. I've uploaded a number of close up detailed screen captures off the PDF file of Lake's patent, so we can better see how he configured the escape-buoy and observation cages. http://cid-5085d10eb6afe47c.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Simon%20Lake%20Patent%20Details Having a sealed gun turret, vertical thrusters, and a bow thruster are very nice features for a sub of that early period. Regards, Szybowski " In a mad world only the mad are sane. " ~ Akira Kurosawa |