The captain led the way, and when they arrived, Dwight was standing at a large whiteboard mounted on the far wall. The board extended the full length of one side of the room and was filled with tasks and timelines for getting the Louisiana back to sea within two days. Dwight indicated the beginning and ending of tasks with small triangles connected by a horizontal line. The length of the line indicated how long the task should take. When a task was started, Dwight colored in the triangle at the beginning of the line, and when the task was completed, he colored in the triangle at the end of the line. In Dwight’s usual “low-tech” manner, a vertical string was tacked at the top and bottom of the board. The string represented current time and was repositioned to the right every half hour. Any tasks to the left of the string should have been completed by now, and tasks to the right of the string were yet to be done.
Seeing the captain and XO enter, Dwight pointed proudly to the board. Thanks to the overcast day, his team was at least six hours ahead of schedule. A number of the triangles to the right of the string were already filled in.
“Very impressive, Dwight. Your team is going like gangbusters!”
“You betcha. We aim to please!”
“Well, since you’re so far ahead of schedule, and we don’t have to worry about satellite snoops today, how about taking Pappy for a FAM-1 flight?”
“I’d love to. I was hopin’ to get another chance to fly one of those babies before you took them away! Let’s go…they’re in the hangar sittin’ on dollies. They’re both charged up and ready to go so we’ll push one out to the exterior hoist and lower it to the water.”
“Uh…one question first,” said the XO. “How are you going to recover us? I understand these things have to keep moving or else they sink.”
“Good question,” said Dwight. “We have a net, which we lower into the water with the hoist. We spread the net out to form a barricade. Then, when we complete our flight, we simply fly the fighter into the net and get hoisted out.”
Pappy gave Dwight a skeptical look, and Dwight further assured him, “Believe me, Pappy, we’ve done dozens of test flights on these babies, and the recovery is a piece of cake!”
Pappy gave him a nod, not really convinced, and the three men walked together into the hangar. Pappy let out a low whistle as he caught sight of the fighters. “Wow, you were right, Captain, these things do look like a cross between an F-104 and a Mirage fighter—this is incredible!”
As Pappy walked around the fighter admiring its sleek lines, he noticed something unusual. “Captain, I think we have a problem here.”
“What’s the problem?”
“These fighters don’t have their screws mounted yet, and there aren’t any shafts to mount them on!”
George laughed and said, “They don’t use screws in the conventional sense. When you say ‘screw’, you mean a propeller. For normal cruising, the sub-fighters have a propulsion system which uses an impeller instead.”
“An impeller?”
“That’s right. It’s kind of like a backward propeller mounted inside a rotating tube. In this design, the impeller gives us two major advantages over a conventional propeller. First, it’s quieter. The impeller is much less likely to cavitate, and if it does, much of the noise is muffled because it’s inside a tube.”
“Why is it less likely to cavitate?”
“Well, as you know, cavitation occurs when an object traveling rapidly through the water creates an area of low pressure on its back side. The low pressure causes air dissolved in the water to form bubbles, and the bubbles make a lot of racket.”
“Sure, Captain, every submariner knows that. But why is an impeller better?”
“A conventional propeller is mounted on a central shaft with the blades radiating outward from the shaft. When the shaft rotates the propeller, the tips of the blades are the farthest from the shaft (the center of rotation) and therefore travel with the greatest speed. Typically, cavitation first occurs at the tips of the blades, where their speed is the greatest. An impeller, on the other hand, is formed by blades radiating inward from the walls of a hollow tube. Water flows freely through the tube from the bow of the fighter to the stern. The tube itself rotates, and the blades, which are mounted on the inside of the tube, rotate with it. Since the blades radiate inward, the tips of the blades are nearest the center of rotation, where their speed is the least. Therefore, the tube and the blade can rotate at much higher speeds without cavitating. The result is a high velocity jet of water being expelled from the rear of the tube and driving the fighter forward.”
“Wow, that’s a great design,” said Pappy. “But you said there were two advantages to using impellers. What’s the other one?”
“The other one has to do with survival. If these sub-fighters had propellers, and one happened to hit a hard object and get damaged or knocked off, what would happen to the fighter?”
“Oh yes, I see. You would be headed straight for the bottom—Davy Jones’s locker! Since these things have to maintain headway in order to maintain their depth or to climb, if you lose a prop, you’re sunk.”
“Exactly. With impellers, we don’t have that problem.”
“Good thinking, once again. I also see there’s a hatch on top. I understood the normal way in and out of the fighter would be through the hatch on the bottom. So I take it this is some sort of emergency escape hatch?”
“That’s right,” said Dwight, “but we’re gonna use it today because there’s not enough clearance under that dolly to get in from below.”
A small forklift truck was hooked to the dolly, and one of Dwight’s men pulled the fighter out of the hangar to the external hoist. Pappy and Dwight got into the fighter with Dwight initially in the pilot’s seat and Pappy in the sonar operator’s seat.
As the hatch was closed, Dwight said, “Strap yourself in, Pappy. You’ve got a lap belt with a fittin’ to hold the two D-rings from the shoulder harnesses. Just slide those two rings onto the post and then lock it down. You can pull on the loose end of the lap belt to tighten everything. This is truly an underwater fighter, so you’ll need to be strapped in pretty tight.” Pappy followed Dwight’s instructions and then announced, “Okay, I’m all set.”
Dwight, who had been watching Pappy strap in, said, “No, cinch it up tighter.”
“What? It’s tight already.”
“You call that tight? My grandmother straps in tighter than that on Southwest. You’re free to get up and move about the country!”
“Okay, okay.” Pappy pulled the end of the lap belt another inch or two through the fitting. “There. I can’t pull it any tighter without cutting off circulation!”
“All right. Just remember, I told you so. When we get started, I’ll demonstrate a few features, and then we can trade positions so you can get a feel for it yourself.”
“That’s fine. Believe me, I’m a little bit intimidated by this thing right now.”
“Not to worry. You’ll find this thing very easy to fly.”
They put on their headsets, tested the intercom, and tested the communication link with the hoist operator. Dwight gave the operator the go-ahead for water insertion. The hoist lifted them into the air on the end of a cable, swung them over the side of the platform, and lowered them forty feet to the water.
“All right, ten feet,” Dwight told the operator.
Once they were at a depth of ten feet, Dwight flipped on the engine switch and nudged the throttle forward and back several times, causing the fighter to sway slightly on the end of the cable.
“What are you doing?” Pappy asked.
“We want to make sure we have good engine operation before the hoist releases us.”
“Oh, good idea. I’d hate to have to ride this thing to the bottom trying to start the engine!”
“Well, it’s an electric motor, so we don’t really “start the engine” per se. We’re really testing to make sure electrical energy is getting to the motor, and it’s responding.” Dwight advanc
ed the throttle one more time until they could feel the response.
“Okay, the engine’s good. Ready to go?”
“Ready!”
Pulling back on the throttle, Dwight had the hoist operator release them. The fighter immediately nosed over and started down in a twenty-degree dive. Dwight advanced the throttle and pulled back gently on the control stick to level off. He pointed out the depth gauge showing they were level at fifty feet. The speedometer indicated twenty knots. Their heading was 090 degrees.
“You okay?” Dwight asked.
Pappy was busily pulling an extra couple of inches of the lap belt through the fitting. “Yeah, fine,” he responded.
“The joystick works just like in a fighter plane. Moving the stick right or left rolls you right or left; pulling back on the stick raises the nose; pushing forward on the stick lowers the nose. You’ve also got two rudder pedals for yaw control.”
“Okay, that all seems pretty straightforward.”
“I used to have a flight instructor who jokingly described the flight controls by saying, “Pull back on the stick—houses get smaller; push forward on the stick—houses get bigger!” I’ve been trying to come up with a parallel saying for these sub-fighters, but I haven’t thought of one yet.”
“Well, it’s probably because you can’t see a darn thing out there!”
“That’s true. I forgot to mention that flying down here is almost one hundred percent instrument flying. You’ll be IFR-qualified right off the bat. It’s only when you’re in real close on a target, and you can pick it up visually in your spotlight, that it’s anything like VFR flying.”
“That’ll take a little getting used to.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad. You’ll pick it up real quick. This switch here, by the way, is for your landin’ light. You’ll need it to find your landin’ position each time you return to the Louisiana. We’ll be paintin’ markings on the deck which will enable you to line up correctly over the escape hatch.”
“Okay.”
“That control panel in front of you is for the sonar operator. We modified a commercially available sonar system and installed nine different transducers around the bow of the fighter. So your operator will be able to get pretty good azimuth information. You also have a weapons console there. That small joystick you have on your console controls the firin’ of your rockets.”
“Rockets? George didn’t tell me anything about rockets!”
“I’ll let him fill you in about those. Right now, let me show you what this baby can do.”
Dwight nosed the fighter over into a twenty-degree dive and advanced the throttle all the way forward. The fighter quickly accelerated to fifty knots, and as they passed two hundred feet, Dwight pulled back on the stick. Pulling about two Gs, he started a slow roll to the left and performed a flawless barrel roll. Glancing over at Pappy, he noticed some white knuckles and a very pale face.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you Pappy, there’s a barf bag in the console on your right. If you haven’t flown a fighter before, some of these maneuvers take a little getting used to.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Just give me a little warning before you roll upside down again!”
“Okay, sorry about that.” Dwight descended to a depth of 250 feet and a speed of forty knots. “I’m goin’ to full throttle, and I’m gonna pull the nose up to about forty-five degrees. You watch the speedometer and tell me what happens.”
As SF-1 rapidly rose, the speed stayed at forty knots or even rose a little. Dwight leveled off at fifty feet.
“That’s amazing. We didn’t bleed off any speed at all. In fact, I think we accelerated!” said Pappy.
“You’re right—we did! We put the latest generation electric motor in here. It’s one of the most efficient electric motors ever designed. It uses man-made magnets called neodymium magnets, which are probably hundreds of times more powerful than any naturally occurrin’ magnets. That little electric motor gives us a thrust-to-drag ratio of about 1.0. That means at full throttle, you could point the nose straight up and not loose any speed.”
“That’s phenomenal!”
“Yeah it is, but the best is yet to come. Here’s the kicker—literally, since it will kick you in the pants—we have the equivalent of an afterburner.”
“An afterburner?” Pappy asked incredulously.
“Yes. It works because of two engineerin’ features we have put together, ingeniously if I do say so myself. The first, we “borrowed” from the Russians. You’ve probably heard of the Shkvall?”
“Of course. Every submariner knows about the Shkvall or “squall” in English. It’s an underwater, solid-rocket propelled torpedo the Russians developed back in the late 1990s. The solidrocket motor can propel the torpedo at about two hundred knots partly because the torpedo reduces its drag by showering itself in a sheet of supercavitating air bubbles. If I remember correctly, the weapon produces a high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin that coats the torpedo in a thin layer of gas, greatly reducing the drag.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“But surely these fighters aren’t rocket powered, are they?”
“No. I said we borrowed somethin’ from the Russians, but it wasn’t the rocket—we have our own solution for propulsion—we borrowed the bubbles. During normal cruisin’, the bubbles are off, and the internal electric drive unit in the fighter can silently propel the fighter up to fifty knots or so, as you just saw. When the pilot kicks in the afterburner, two things happen. First, high-pressure air is forced out of hundreds of little holes along the leadin’ edge of the hull and over the surface of the wings, creatin’ the same sort of supercavitatin’ envelope used by the Shkvall. Second, our SQID-drive is activated.”
“Squid drive? What the hell is that?”
“The fighter has a water chamber that fills when the SQID drive is activated. When an extra boost is required, a hydraulically driven piston forces the water out of a nozzle on the stern at such high pressure and speed that the fighter is accelerated in a matter of seconds to—get this—over 150 knots!”
“What?” exclaimed Pappy!
“That’s right—it’s fully tested—150 knots submerged. Ready to try it?”
“I guess so. I don’t have much choice do I?”
“Nope.” Dwight slowed the fighter to about ten knots and then hit the SQID drive. After a short delay as the water chamber filled, the force of about 1.2 Gs pressed the two men to the backs of their seats. About seven seconds later, the speedometer indicated 150 knots.
“Wow, that’s incredible! But did we stay level? I would have sworn the nose pitched up when you hit that afterburner.”
“No, we stayed level the whole time. Your inner ear makes you think the nose pitched up. You see, the force pushin’ you back in your seat is almost equal to the normal force of gravity. It affects the fluid in your inner ear, and your brain says, “Hey, the only way I can experience this fluid motion is for me to be rotatin’ to a position where I’m looking straight up.” The inner ear and the brain were designed for 1 G—walking around on the ground. We fool them a lot with modern technology!”
“That’s cool, but why do you call it a squid drive?”
“That’s S-Q-I-D. It stands for Super-cavitation Quantified Injection Drive. It’s actually based on the way a squid accelerates. The squid has an internal bladder, which holds water, and when he needs to accelerate in a hurry he expels a water jet which accelerates him in the opposite direction. In our fighter, the power is simply unbelievable. You can roll one of these things into an angle of bank, hit the SQID activator, pull back on the stick, and pull four Gs underwater making a 180-degree turn. Now, you’re gonna make a lot of noise doing that because the SQID is pretty noisy and essentially the entire wing is cavitatin’, but who cares? You can outrun any torpedo shot at you, except for a Shkvall, and you can outturn anything, including the Shkvall. And unlike a rocket, which runs out of fuel, we use water! The water jet only lasts for about
seven seconds, but as soon as the piston resets and the reservoir refills with water, you’re ready to hit it again!”
“Fantastic! I guess the limiting factor is battery power, right?”
“That’s right, but with our modern batteries, you should be able to cruise around for six to eight hours with no problem. Ready to try it yourself?”
“Absolutely!”
The men switched positions, and Pappy ran the fighter through its full range of capabilities. It was truly an incredible machine—quite a testament to George and Dwight’s engineering capabilities.
“Okay, Pappy, head us back west toward Platform Alpha, and I’ll show you some of our sonar capabilities. We have a little noisemaker attached to the recovery net. I’m searchin’ for it now and have a contact at two-eight-zero degrees. We have both active and passive sonar capabilities, but since we don’t want anyone to know we’re out here, we’ll just use passive sonar today. Let’s do some S-turns on our way in so we can measure different bearings to the target. We’ve installed a simple triangulation program, which continuously calculates and updates the range to the target. I’m showin’ the target at about twenty-seven thousand yards.”
“That’s a long way.”
“Hey, in this thing we’ll be there in no time.”
And they were. When they got within one thousand yards, they leveled off at a depth of ten feet and turned on the landing light to illuminate the area in front of the fighter.
“The net is stretched out in a north-south orientation,” said Dwight, “and the noisemaker is mounted in the center of the net. We’ll hit it on a westerly headin’, so all we have to do is keep the noisemaker centered dead ahead, and we should fly right into the center of the net.”
About one hundred feet out, the net came into view, and Dwight was exactly right—they flew right into the center of the net. The deck crew immediately hoisted the fighter out of the water and set it on the deck of Platform Alpha. The net was removed, and the hoist was reattached to the fighter so it could be raised and set back on its dolly. After completing their shutdown checklist, Pappy and Dwight exited the fighter and headed back to Dwight’s office for a debriefing with George.
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