Carbon fiber to create deep sea submersibles

The diving plane is a "diving aircraft", also known as a "flying submarine". The United States is developing a new concept weapon that can hit a target like a submarine underwater, and can rush out of the water and fly like an airplane. .

The principle that a submarine is navigating underwater and flying in the air is similar, but the challenge of this dual-use weapon is still huge – the aircraft needs to be as light as possible to fly with minimal power, and the submarine needs a strong hull to withstand Water pressure; aircraft heavier than air gains lift by separating the airflow from the wing, and the submarine changes buoyancy by sucking in and discharging water.

The idea to solve this problem is to design the entire craft to be lighter than water. Like an inverted airplane, the force generated by the wing dives into the water. After landing on the surface, the angle of the wing will change, producing an upward lift to allow it to take off.

The dive plane mimics the action of some bird diving, that is, dive into the water, get the downward thrust, and then sneak underwater.

The submersible is made of carbon fiber . The dive plane made of this material is strong enough and light enough to allow the aircraft to fly in the air like an airplane or to snorkel in the sea like a submarine.

Some people in the United States have designed a device called "Super Falcon" that can sneak into the water 300 meters with a pair of short and thick wings. If the aircraft is equipped with a jet engine and a larger wing, it can fly at a speed of 900 kilometers per hour and 18 kilometers per hour in the water.

Hawkes Marine Technology of California recently developed a diving device, the Deep Sea Super Falcon, a two-seat, winged submersible that can carry passengers underwater.

This custom-made submersible allows for “dive flight”, swimming with marine life, shuttle between underwater canyons, and even as an aquatic drum. The company's founder, Graham Hawkes, said: "It's like an underwater plane with organic wings that can fly freely in the water."

The "Deep Sea Super Falcon" is 6.4 meters long and has a wings length of nearly 2.7 meters. It can carry 2-3 passengers and sneak into the 120 meters deep waters. The traditional design of the submarine has an inner shell and an outer shell. When submerged into the water, the submarine is filled with seawater between the two shells, thereby changing the density of the submarine and forming a negative buoyancy; when the submarine is exposed to the water surface, the submarine is filled with air between the two shells, changing The submarine density makes the submarine finally surface.

The newly designed submersible resembles a whale and uses propulsion to form a “downward elevator” that allows the submersible to descend smoothly below the surface of the water. Essentially, the submersible uses buoyancy and resistance. When it encounters an emergency or loses power under water, it will simply float to the surface.

Karen Hawkes, vice president of Hawkes Marine Technology, said: "This is similar to the James Bond version of the submersible, its greatest advantage is good buoyancy, with real security." Currently, The Deep Sea Super Falcon submersible is priced at $1.7 million and includes on-site driving and operational training.

Hawkes has built and sold a "super falcon" to American billionaire Tom Perkins, a venture capitalist through Google, Symantec, Genentech Technology companies) such large companies invest in huge wealth.

A "Super Falcon" submarine owned by Hawkes has been publicly displayed to the public at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He announced there "this is the most beautiful machine built." Hawkes said: "I have always wanted to build such a machine for myself. It will establish a new mode of transportation in the sea. I hope that we can connect people to the part of the world that people did not know before. ”

working principle:

The Super Falcon can dive to a depth of 1,500 feet and travel at speeds of up to 6 knots on the sea floor, much faster than conventional submersibles. The submarine has a carbon fiber compression hull with two cockpits and dashboards familiar to pilots for dual flight control. It can dive at a speed of 200 feet per minute, and can reach twice the dive, 400 feet per minute. Hawkes is said to be the first person to design a submersible based on the same principle of flying in the air. He uses the downward "lift" on the wing to make the submarine dive deep.

A conventional submersible can work continuously for three to five hours under water, while the Super Falcon can work continuously for 24 hours. The crew or passengers of this submarine will not suffer from so-called latent diseases or other diseases related to pressure changes, because its pressure has been maintained at a constant value. In the event of an accident, the 4000-pound submarine loses its power and it automatically floats up to the surface. It costs as much as $1.5 million, and the developers say it's about the same price as a light aircraft.