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Hi Jay. That's kinda what I thought. Because our boats are so slow I'm
thinking the dive planes aren't that useful. I put motors on my dive planes ( or
dive planes on my motors ) because of the slow speeds and anticipated lack of
force.
The rear thrusters are the same. They rotate and have prop rings with
"rudder plates" to give a push in the direction I want even if the travel speed
is very slow. The "vectored" thrust concept.
Dean's rear dive planes are pretty big so I would guess they will still
help change dive angle even when going slow. Like the big rudder he has. He
mentioned it worked well even when moving slow.
I remember seeing a short video of the Hawkes two man sub making a banked
turn. That sub has two fairly large dive plane "wings" and he likes to say his
subs "fly" under water.
Rear dive planes can be added to my sub later pretty easily and I would
build them on a test model before I committed to adding them.
My old test model with the little side wings was interesting. It made the
sub model rise and fall but the sub stayed fairly level. I tried setting
the wings one-up one-down but it didn't tilt the sub like I thought it
might. Of course that was just a model and I'm pretty sure on the real sub the
forces applied will develop different characteristics. The test models I used
were tied to a string and placed in flowing water so the action from the
attached motors providing thrust will be quite a bit different. Having the
model tied to the string doesn't really duplicate the forces the real sub will
experience. It'll be interesting to see just how maneuverable it ends up
being.
Towing is something a little more like the test model tied to a string.
It's probably a good idea to try towing a sub at different speeds to determine
how it handles. It could be pretty scary to be dragging a sub around and have it
dive out of sight. Where'd it go ! Where'd it go ! That reminds
me.......
I had an experience like that once. We rented a bare boat in BVI once. Tied
it to a mooring ball and rode the dinghy to shore and played there all day. It
was an island with really big rocks, caves, and trails. we had lunch, drinks,
and walked all over the place. It was called "The Baths" because of the nice
caves at the water's edge.
Anyway, when we came back the boat was gone! Well,
needless to say, we were freakin' out. We took the dinghy out and found it about
1/4 mile down the beach just getting ready to smash up on the rocks. Someone had
dropped the anchor there so saved the boat. The Mooring ball was still attached
but it's anchor rope had rotted through.
I learned why the only mooring spot not guaranteed safe was the one at the
island we had tied up to. It was the only place in BVI where the moorings were
maintained by government employees. All the rest were owned and operated by a
private company so were guaranteed to hold your boat.
I still remember coming down to the beach and saying to my
buddy.....Where'd it go !
Frank D.
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