![]() ![]() The Super Falcon, the fourth in the series, has its roots in one of the most ambitious undersea exploratory missions in modern history. The prototypes began to take shape at HOT's research facility, based at a marina in Richmond, Calif. Soaring underwater, he decided, would take wings, and so he founded Hawkes Ocean Technologies (HOT), a skunkworks dedicated to building the Deep Flight family of winged submersibles. Hawkes wanted to explore the concept of moving more efficiently through the ocean and create a sub that would grant unprecedented access to everyone from tourists and legislators to marine biologists. ![]() As a result, submersibles still worked like the aquatic equivalent of hot air balloons, creeping around the oceans at the pace of a jellyfish. ![]() While aviation advanced swiftly and consistently over the past century-yielding highly maneuverable craft that can fly faster than the speed of sound-progress on undersea vehicles had been slow. "I remember sitting on a rock in Halifax Harbor thinking, we can do better than this," he says. (Photograph by Doug Adesko)īut after launching the first Deep Rover, Hawkes had a nagging feeling. The Super Falcon is the first production-ready winged submersible. Graham Hawkes at Hawkes Ocean Technologies workshop in Richmond, Calif. Two of his bubble-hulled Deep Rover subs were used by James Cameron for his Aliens of the Deep documentary. Hawkes piloted one, the Mantis, in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only-right into the side of James Bond's rig (at the director's insistence). ![]() Some of those vessels found their way into movies. For the next two decades, he designed submersibles for the oil industry and for scientific research. He began his career in the 1960s as a civilian ocean engineer, working on underwater vehicles for the British Special Forces. Graham Hawkes is to ocean exploration what Burt Rutan is to private space travel-a relentless innovator who challenges the accepted wisdom in his field by inventing around it. The SUV shifts into reverse and slowly backs us into the water. All I hear is the intercom chatter between Hawkes and dive supervisor Dirk Rosen. As the acrylic canopies descend over our heads, the world outside goes eerily silent. Hawkes goes over the controls and life-support systems with me, then climbs into the front. Once the Super Falcon has been repaired, the crew hitches a custom-built trailer to the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser and I climb into the sub's rear cockpit. Lose power and the vessel automatically floats to the surface. Free of ballast, the sub is positively buoyant, which dramatically increases safety. Whereas conventional subs rely on ballast, the Super Falcon descends as forward speed creates a pressure differential between the top and bottom of the wings. It also has inverted wings, which turn the aeronautic concept of lift upside down, allowing the sub to literally fly through the water. Long and thin, with a tapered nose, the Super Falcon has rear horizontal stabilizers, two large tail rudders and dual acrylic cockpit canopies. It's not surprising that he was drawn to the Super Falcon, since the two craft share many of the same design principles. Behel has a bit more flight experience than me, however: He used to fly F-4 Phantom jet fighters for the military. Like Behel, I'm here at the Coast Guard pier in Monterey for flight school-a training course for prospective Super Falcon pilots. But because today's my day to get behind the controls, I'm all for getting the submersible in top working order. Still, it meant that Hawkes had to drive 250 miles round-trip from Monterey, Calif., to his workshop north of San Francisco to get new prop blades-an errand that took until 3 am. "The whole idea was to find any weak points, and we did," Hawkes said as he replaced plastic rudder fittings with stronger metal components. Then, they pushed its limits with "upset" maneuvers-near vertical dives and 90-degree rolls-that resulted in a busted prop and broken rudder. The vessel had to be cut free of the stalks by a safety diver. On their first dive, Graham Hawkes, the sub's designer, and pilot trainee Lee Behel inadvertently tested its ability to navigate kelp beds. But the Super Falcon's rigorous workout has finally caught up with it. For the past two days I've strolled down to the pier at dawn, just as the fog begins to roll off Monterey Bay, to watch as crewmen peel back a collapsible garage to reveal the winged submersible and prepare it for the water. Ten in the morning is a late start for the Super Falcon. The Super Falcon submersible uses its inverted wings to move through water like a plane through air. ![]()
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