DeepFlight Challenger is a one-person personal submarine

deep submergence vehicle A deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) is a deep-diving crewed submersible that is self-propelled. Several navies operate vehicles that can be accurately described as DSVs. DSVs are commonly divided into two types: research DSVs, which are used for ex ...

with full ocean depth capability. It is an "aero-submarine" which uses hydrodynamic forces to descend, as the sub has positive buoyancy, utilizing DeepFlight technology from Hawkes Ocean Technologies. The submarine is currently owned by Virgin Oceanic.

History

The submarine was designed by Graham Hawkes and Hawkes Ocean Technologies. It was originally ordered by

Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...

for an attempt on the

Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the deepest-known point of the seabed of Earth, with a depth of by direct measurement from deep-diving submersibles, remotely operated underwater vehicles and benthic landers, and (sometimes) slightly more by sonar bathym ...

, to become the first solo dive there.Virgin Oceanic
Sub
(accessed 27 March 2012)CNet News

Daniel Terdiman, 3 October 2008 (accessed 27 March 2012) Planning for the submarine started in 2000.New York Times
"The Challenger’s Deep-Sea Brethren"
Andy Isaacson, 27 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) It was put on the ordersheet in 2005, with a depth capability of 37,000 ft.Hawkes Ocean Technologies
Infosheet DeepFlight Challenger
(accessed 27 March 2012) The craft was named "Challenger" after the ''Challenger Deep'' by Fossett. At the time of the order, this would have doubled the depth that a single-place sub would be capable of going. It was to have been a "secret project" of Fossett's to be the first to solo the Challenger Deep, and was secret at the time of his death in 2007.KGO-TV ABC 7
"Fossett's secret project was built in Richmond"
Thursday 2 October 2008 (accessed 27 March 2012) The project was put on hold when Fossett died, and locked up in a warehouse at Hawkes Ocean Technologies, by the then owners, Fossett's estate, but was later revived when Chris Welsh of Deep Sub LLC bought the unfinished sub and restarted the program in 2010. Welsh had purchased the sub and the

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian languages, Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized tribe, federally recognize ...

yacht from the Fossett estate for around $1 million. Virgin Oceanic came in as sponsors a year later in 2011.Boing Boing
"Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic: deep-sea exploring submarines"
Xeni Jardin, 5 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012)Los Angeles Times
"With spaceships and airplanes under his belt, Richard Branson turns to submarines"
Mike Reicher and Kurt Streeter, 6 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012)Virgin Oceanic
Operations Team
(accessed 27 March 2012) At the time of Fossett's death, the sub had been almost finished,San Francisco Chronicle
"Winged sub almost ready to go very deep"
Tom Stienstra, 12 October 2008 (accessed 27 March 2012) only four weeks from dive tests and delivery.CNN
"Super-light sub has 'capability greater than U.S. Navy'"
Mairi Mackay, 11 September 2009 (accessed 27 March 2012) Had the sub been finished as scheduled, it would have been the first to return a solo manned mission to the Challenger Deep.

Design

The submarine uses composite technology to create a lightweight sub with great depth capabilities. The viewdome is made from quartz, while the rest of the pressure hull uses carbon/epoxy composites. The interface between dome and hull is by bonded titanium rings. The sub has a 24-hour endurance, 3kt bottom speed, and 350 ft/min dive rate.CBS News
"With Virgin Oceanic, Branson wants to go deep, really deep"
5 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012)Composites World
"Deepsea submersible incorporates composite pressure capsule"
Sara Black, 31 August 2010 (accessed 27 March 2012) Without ballast attached, the sub is positively buoyant, it uses

syntactic foam Syntactic foams are composite materials synthesized by filling a metal, polymer, or ceramic matrix with hollow spheres called microballoons or cenospheres or non-hollow spheres (e.g. perlite). In this context, "syntactic" means "put together ...

for buoyancy. The submarine does not have a temperature control system for the cabin, so will tend towards ambient temperature.Virgin Oceanic
Branson Answers Kids Questions
, 2012 Jan 19 (accessed 27 March 2012) The sub weighs 8000 lbs, and does not need a dedicated mothership. It has a 15 mi range, 6kt maximum speed, and 3-axis freedom of motion. It uses LED lighting instead of arc lights, and has a laser navigation system. The sub can dive to the bottom of the ocean and get back to the surface in 5 hours.Hawkes Ocean Technologies
DeepFlight Challenger
(accessed 27 March 2012) The design draw from DeepFlight II, another Hawkes Ocean Technologies full depth submarine. The pressure hull is rated to withstand 20,000PSI (more than the 16,000PSI at the bottom of the

Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about in length and in width. The maximum know ...

). The sub is smaller than James Cameron's

Deepsea Challenger ''Deepsea Challenger'' (DCV 1) is a deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this goal in ...

.CNet News
"Cameron and Branson race to bring urgent attention to oceans"
Daniel Terdiman, 26 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) Challenger represents the third generation of DeepFlight technology, one generation behind the

DeepFlight Super Falcon The DeepFlight Super Falcon is a personal submarine designed by Graham Hawkes, a former civilian ocean engineer. It was hoped that the technology used in this submersible would allow travel to the deepest parts of the ocean. Development The ...

.Popular Mechanics
"Q&A With Graham Hawkes, the Man Who Built the Deep Flight Challenger Submersible"
Sarah Fecht, 8 April 2011 (accessed 4/4/2012)

Test program

; May 2007 : Penn State Applied Research Laboratory Building; Pressure test of the pressure hull to Mariana Trench like pressures. Passed test, except for a crack in the viewdome due to a manufacturing defect. ; November 2007 : cancelled tests, in the wake of Steve Fossett's death. ; February 2012 : Alameda Naval Air Station (Oakland, California, US); Ballast system was tested. Submerged battery and engine testing, while manned.Virgin Oceanic
Testing the Sub
, 2012 Feb 21 (accessed 27 March 2012)

Dive program

Five Dives project

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expresse ...

and Chris Welsh of Virgin Oceanic plan on using DeepFlight Challenger to reach the deepest point of each of the world's five oceans, the

of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

(36,201 ft), the Puerto Rico Trench of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...

(28,232 ft), the

Diamantina Trench The Diamantina Fracture Zone (DFZ) is an area of the south-eastern Indian Ocean seafloor, consisting of a range of ridges and trenches. It lies to the south of the mideastern Indian Ocean features of the Wharton Basin and Perth Basin, and ...

of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

(26,401 ft), South Sandwich Trench of the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-smal ...

(23,737 ft), and Molloy Deep of the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

(18,399 ft).CNet News
With Virgin Oceanic, Branson plans to get deep
Daniel Terdiman, 5 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012)CNet News

5 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012) The

yacht will be used as the mothership for the dive efforts.The Register
"Richard Branson to prowl oceans' hadal depths in flying sub"
Lester Haines, 6 April 2011 (accessed 27 March 2012) It was planned that Branson would pilot the sub to the Puerto Rico Trench, while Chris Welsh would pilot it for the Mariana Trench dive. Virgin Oceanic had hoped to be the first team to solo to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and first team to return to the Challenger Deep since the

Bathyscaphe Trieste ''Trieste'' is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe which reached a record depth of about in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boa ...

, the first submersible to dive to the Challenger Deep, left, however, James Cameron's Deepsea Challenge project beat them to it in March 2012. There has been an undeclared race on to return to the Challenger Deep between four teams, Cameron's, Virgin Oceanic's,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

- Schmidt/ DOER's, and Triton Submarines'.Macleans' Magazine
"James Cameron’s giant dive for mankind"
Kate Lunau, 22 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) The attempt on Challenger Deep had been announced in April 2011. Based on testing at high pressure, the DeepFlight Challenger was determined to be suitable only for a single dive, not the repeated uses that had been planned as part of Virgin Oceanic service. As such, in 2014, Virgin Oceanic "scrapped" plans for the five dives project using the DeepFlight Challenger, as originally conceived, putting plans on hold until more suitable technologies are developed.

Similar efforts

As of February 2012, several other vehicles are under development to reach the same depths. The groups developing them include:BBC News
"Race to the bottom of the ocean"
22 February 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) *

Deepsea Challenge ''Deepsea Challenger'' (DCV 1) is a deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this goal i ...

, a program created by

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post- New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability ...

and National Geographic, using the submarine

, that carries a crew of one, and which became the second manned vehicle to reach

.National Geographic
"James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive"
Ker Than, 25 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012)BBC News
"Race to the bottom of the ocean: Cameron"
8 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) * Triton Submarines, a Florida-based company that designs and manufactures private submarines, whose vehicle, '' Triton 36000/3'', will carry a crew of three to the seabed in 120 minutes.Triton Submarines
"Triton 36,000 Full Ocean Depth Submersible"
(accessed 27 March 2012)BBC News
"Race to the bottom of the ocean: Triton"
22 February 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) * Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER) Marine, a

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

based marine technology company established in 1992, that is developing a vehicle, '' Deepsearch'' (and ''

Ocean Explorer HOV Unlimited The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

''), with some support from

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and software engineer known for being the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, executive chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2 ...

with which a crew of two or three will take 90 minutes to reach the seabed, as the program

Deep Search Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), ...

.DOER Marine
"Deep Search"
(accessed 27 March 2012)BBC News
"Race to the bottom of the ocean: DOER"
22 February 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012)

References

{{reflist

External links

* Virgin Oceanic
Sub
* Hawkes Ocean Technologies

* CNet News
DeepFlight Challenger
archive Deep-submergence vehicles