Is It A Bird? A plane? No, It’s The Deep Flight Super Falcon!

By Queuebot in Science & Tech on May 16, 2009 at 11:09 am

Marine engineer Graham Hawkes’ latest creation, Deep Flight Super Falcon is a $1.5 million battery-powered winged submarine is just like a plane, except it "flies" underwater:

A single rear-mounted propeller, looking much like an electric fan, drives the vessel, and a 48-volt lithium phosphate battery provides power. Its thick pressure hull is a carbon-epoxy mixture, and the two passengers aboard ride seated in cockpits fore and aft, observing their watery surroundings through thick Plexiglas canopies.

According to Hawkes, the craft “flies” just like a jet plane, with electric motors controlling for roll, pitch and yaw. It can fly downward at a maximum of 200 feet per minute, upward at twice that speed and keep flying for a maximum of five hours at 4 knots – about 4.6 mph. [...]

John McCosker, [California Academy of Sciences] chair of aquatic biology, said the agile submarine will enable him and his colleagues for the first time to follow along with the travels of “whales and dolphins and even super sharks – maybe even the mysterious giant squid.”

Link – via coralnotesfromthefield

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by mattphunkadellic.


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  1. seefish3
    May 16th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    That’s cool as hell, but why does it have to cost a mil and a half? Does it have frikkin’ lasers?

  2. Melvin
    May 16th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    Wonder why the double bubble canopy rather than a single bathtub shaped canopy. Even if they wanted the bubbles for pressure reasons I would have thought that a non pressurized tunnel joining the two would be more hydrodynamic.

  3. What...?!
    May 16th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    That thing is tiny!!! $1.5 million!?!?

  4. Ajan
    May 17th, 2009 at 5:30 am

    Once they start catching some sea creatures with that thing, then we’ll know why its a mil and half

  5. Sue Dunham
    May 17th, 2009 at 8:09 am

    Sustained travel at 4 knots? That’s too slow to keep up with anything more than a sunfish.


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