Re: Cousteau Saucer and magnet drives Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] FWIW: Don't know i...

[VBra676539@aol.com]

Carsten and all,

One or two points come up out of the Saucer info that might be clarified. The 
sub was never actually replaced, for one thing. The SP500s were built and 
tested as camera platforms and operated sporadically for several years, and 
the Calypso couldn't conveniently carry them all, so sometimes they swapped 
them out, depending on the mission requirements. However, the Frenchmen 
discovered that it is tough to do all that driving and shooting pictures and 
picking up samples and scratching their butts all at once with no one else in 
the sub to help. These subs are all pre-digital, so that sophisticated 
controls simply were not available (Nuytton style midget subs, which are a 
kissing cousin to the Fleas, spring immediately to mind). The Fleas were 
thought to be too complex (and finicky) to train with on short notice, so 
only experienced pilots were allowed to operate them, which excluded the 
science or engineering people that often justified diving in the first place. 
After a while, the 500s were put in deep storage in Virginia and the Saucer 
resumed its rightful place in the hold on Calypso. It was still part of the 
main equipment but not on board when Calypso met her untimely end in 
Singapore.

Andre Laban was one of the two original engineers involved with the Soucoupe 
development in the 50s and became the 1st pilot and the Chief Pilot. Falco 
was the 1st diver to pilot train, but he learned from Laban.

The sub was NOT built by Westhinghouse, Carsten. Both hulls were fabricated 
in France by several vendors and assembled by the Cousteau engineering team. 
And the price was $250,000 from start to finish (including development, 
testing, etc.). This figure comes from Will Forman, who was the China Lake 
project engineer on the Deep Jeep, Nemo & Deep View submersibles, who quoted 
the man himself in doing so. The Fleas, by the way, were built on contract by 
Sud Avaition in a little shop right around the corner from where the Concords 
were being built.

And to clarify the timeline, the 1st hull was lost in the Med in '57, and the 
2nd (thus DS-2) did its 1st test dives in the West Indies in '59, fried its 
(then) experimental ni-cad batteries, and was taken back to France. This deal 
with the nicads actually happened twice, I think. Finally the lead acid 
batteries were installed (which effectively nullified their science payload) 
and they were off to the races in 1960.

Westhinghouse comes into this in the mid 60s. They contracted with Cousteau 
for the soucoupe and two pilots (Andre Laban, Canoe Kientzy and briefly, 
Albert Falco) and provided the world's first full-tilt portable system to 
Dill and others along the West Coast of Mexico. This was done to settle into 
the submarine business. Cousteau wouldn't let the Westinghouse guys operate 
the sub. From the experience gained that summer, Westinghouse decided to 
build DeepStar 12,000. Cousteau got the contract but his metal people screwed 
up. The VascoJet 90 hull material chosen would not meet the Charpy V-notch 
testing criteria required by the US Navy, and was refused. Westinghouse then 
had the same hull fabricated in the US using HY-80, which was the Navy's hull 
material and well known, which produced the Deepstar 4000. The rest, as they 
say, is history.

One side note to all that is the VascoJet hull in France. It was re-rated to 
an operating depth of 3000 meters and became Cyana, which is still 
operational today. Deepstar 4000 was purchased by Comex and returned to 
France but never reactivated. Makes it all circular, eh?

Best Regards,
Vance