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Dean,
I would just be aching to
find out more about the frozen aircraft carrier idea, but suspect you'd have to
kill me so better not even ask. I once owned an old British sports car of
the biodegradable kind. You know, the ones you gradually sweep up off the garage
floor in the form of little red flakes. But the amount of maintenance that would
be required to keep a sub that melts is too much even for me!
Back to the hull... The
price of steel has gone up a lot in recent years, it's true. But even so, I can
assure you the cost of the basic raw materials will be a relatively small
component of the overall budget. It would be expensive if you ordered a finished
hull with everything put together. But the components themselves are not so
bad. I'd have to go fishing for receipts, and my prices would be way out of date
by now anyway, but the order of magnitude is probably around $5K for a
typical PSUB like a Kittredge design. What you'd get for that is a collection of
plate rolled into cylinders for things like the hull, coning tower, and battery
pods, endcaps, and some rings to weld in as stiffeners. The cylinders are rolled
but will normally need a longitudinal weld. The cheapest and easiest sort of
hull I can think of is the geometry in which the hull is made up of two endcaps
welded together, like Cousteau's socoupe. There were some threads on that sort
of design a few months ago.
If you want to visualize
how this all looks, go to the PSUBS picture gallery and follow the link that
says John Farrington. John seems to have dropped off the face of the earth, but
his website is still up and is just a terrific step by step
orientation.
thanks,
Alec From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org [mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of Recon1st@aol.com Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 3:29 PM To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] call it a double hydro hull In a message dated 10/18/2006 4:26:22 PM Central Daylight Time,
Alec.Smyth@compuware.com writes:
Put on the comic book or sci fi writer hat. Make the double hulled sub, but FREEZE the water between the hulls. Throw away both the inner and outer hulls, otherwise known as molds. Now dress as a commando, approach an enemy shore on a suicide mission, and conceal your sub after landing by letting it melt. Or carry it with you and drink it. Hey, you wouldn't even need viewports Alec you are right up my expertise here. I am a Marine Recon, (special
forces)
No one heres much about us, as we have not gone hollywood like the fish
eaters
(seals)
And don't think yer ice boat is comic book. There actually have been
plans
to build even and aircraft carrier using this idea. As strange as it seems
there
are real advantages.
As far as suicide missions, I will have to educate you. We never go on
suicide
missions, we go on missions with veering degrees of expendability.
Now back to hulls. My thoughts were a cylindrical hull would be
something
I would have to buy and it would be very expensive. Much more than me
welding my own up. I am a poor folk and can only spend about 20,000 on
my toy.
Are you suggesting I could buy a cylinder hull all made up and stay in
budget?
I am looking at a max working depth of 400 ft (fresh water) and
ONe thing I know I need to do at this point is spend much time going
thru the archives, so I don't keep asking the questions you guys have
answered several times already.
a strong believer of big safety margins
Semper fi
Dean Ackman The contents of this e-mail are intended for the named addressee only. It contains information that may be confidential. Unless you are the named addressee or an authorized designee, you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to anyone else. If you received it in error please notify us immediately and then destroy it.
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