Jaunted - Tag: Submarines

Richard Branson Isn't the Only Billionaire Playing with Submarines

JetSetCD — 2011-04-06T10:07:39-05:00

Yesterday, when billionaire Richard Branson announced the expansion of his Virgin Oceanic program to deep-sea exploration, he joined a very exclusive club. Okay, sure; he's already a part of the private island owners' club, the billionaires with space travel aspirations' club, and even the private club owners' club. Now, however, he can finally join the ranks of submarine owners of the world.

Technically Branson got his first sub last year, with the launch of the Necker Nymph, a 3-person tourist sub that accompanies his catamaran yacht-for-charter, the Necker Belle. Read more on it here, but do note its similarities to an airplane, rather an a conventional submarine. Branson's new sub will instead be a 1-seater with capability to reach 37,000 feet. That's crazy, and Branson is even crazier; he intends to pilot the second of five planned deep dives, and stands as the back-up pilot on the first, Marianas Trench dive.

Heaven forbid something happens to Richard, but we're now wondering what other billionaires count submarines among their toys?

Two Years Later and Two Miles Down, Air France Flight 447 is Found

JetSetCD — 2011-04-04T16:40:50-05:00

This is not the happiest day, nor is it the saddest for the families of those who were killed in the crash of Air France Flight 447 two years ago. The correct term is "bittersweet," as finally deep-diving submarines have located a large portion of the airliner two-and-a-half miles underwater, well off the coast of Brazil. With the discovery of the engines, pieces of the fuselage and the landing gear comes the recovery of more bodies and—hoping against hope—perhaps the black box.

The AP video above explains why locating the flight recorder ("black box") is so important, even though two years of seawater may have taken its toll. If any information can be pulled from it, then there is a chance that the world may finally learn what happened to cause the sudden disappearance of the plane from the skies. The current theory is heavy turbulence and issues stemming from "high-altitude storm" it hit between Rio de Janeiro and Paris.

Tweet of the Week: Submarine-Spotting, Like in War Days

JetSetCD — 2011-03-01T17:55:17-05:00

We love Tuesdays. Why, you ask? Because the day brings many travel tips and quips as "Travel Tuesday" on Twitter, and we're going to share our favorite with you. Got an avid travel twitterer we should follow? Let us know.

Pilots get to see the coolest stuff. No, really. They work in an office that's like Google Earth, and of course have the best views at take-off and landing. Going over the Grand Canyon or Wall of China? Oh pish posh—that's child's play.

One of Southwest Airlines' pilots—@SWA_Captain—spotted something very interesting today, and we're completely and utterly jealous:

Witnessed a rare event today. Descending into San Diego along the coast we saw a missile launch from probably a submarine. Spectacular!

Richard Branson Has a New Toy: An Airplane-like Submarine!

JetSetCD — 2010-02-02T13:30:10-05:00

Virgin mogul Richard Branson—he of the naked model kitesurfing and private island—has added a very cool new toy to his impressive holdings. Fresh from all of the buzz surrounding the advancement of Virgin Galactic, Branson is pioneering ahead with a 3-person submarine named Necker Nymph, under a Virgin Oceanic brand, within his Virgin Limited Edition collection of properties.

It's the first sub of its kind, developed especially for Branson by Hawkes Ocean Technologies, and if you're game to pay $88,000 per week for a vacation onboard Branson's new yacht Necker Belle, you'll have the opportunity to take the sub for a spin. And what a spin it will be...

It's like an underwater airplane! More after the jump

'Fly' Beneath The Hawaiian Waves On A Winged Submarine Jet

Omri — 2009-10-22T16:38:42-05:00

Adventure travel company Incredible Adventures has been letting customers pilot high-altitude fighter jets for years. Now the Florida-based company is going from soaring through the air to "flying" under the sea, teaming up with California's Sub Aviator Systems to let people navigate the oceans in company's winged submarine. The Super Aviator looks much more like a jet than it does a sub, and apparently it feels that way too. Per the website blurb, it's a "totally new dimension of flight."

To handle the unique sub you'll need to go to Hawaii this February and be able to hand over between $3,350 and $8,650. But if you're willing to do that they're willing to train you and take you beneath the waves. The Super Aviator runs on battery power but it runs fast—in contrast to a normal submersible where you can stand up and walk, zooming around in this jet requires Indy-500 style seat belts.

Air France Black Box Search Borrows The Titanic's Sub

JetSetCD — 2009-06-08T08:47:07-05:00

It's been exactly a week now since the mysterious disappearance of Air France Flight 447 somewhere off the coat of Brazil. At first, it seemed as though the search parties were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, with no definite search area and not even a solid guarantee that the flight had hit the ocean.

Earlier last week, what appeared to be debris from the fatal flight had been found, but this was determined to be run-of-the-mill ocean trash on Thursday. As of this weekend, be-logoed Air France airplane pieces have been found along with the bodies of 17 passengers, therefore confirming that the plane met with a tragic fate.

Jacques Piccard, Undersea Legend, 1922-2008

Victor Ozols — 2008-11-02T13:55:29-05:00

The oceanographic world suffered a great loss with the death of Jacques Piccard on Saturday. Piccard accomplished a lot in the field of oceanography and engineering, but he is best known for his descent, along with Lt. Don Walsh, to the deepest part of the ocean. It was January 23, 1960 when Piccard and Walsh hopped in a bathyscaphe called Trieste and lowered themselves down, down, down to the floor of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench near Guam. At 10,916 meters below sea level, Trieste touched down on the ocean floor so gently that it didn't even raise a cloud of silt. I interviewed Piccard a couple of years ago, and he told me what he thought was the most important discovery at that depth: a fish. At the time, scientists were wondering what to do with nuclear waste, and they considered dumping it into the Mariana Trench on the assumption that there was no oxygen down there to interact with it. Because Piccard and Walsh saw a fish on the bottom and reported the finding, the ocean floor - and the ocean itself - has been protected from nuclear waste ever since.

People said, oh nuclear waste, we can drop them in the deep trenches and then they would stay there forever. And no, we said no, it’s not true, this fish practically told us that we are not to drop any nuclear waste in the bottom of the trenches, because we know that the water is finally coming back to the surface, and all the sea would be damaged, all the oceans would be damaged by the nuclear waste.

Despite all the advances made in sea exploration since that day nearly fifty years ago, nobody has yet returned to that spot in the deep blue. But Monsieur Piccard accomplished enough with his one dive to last a half century and beyond.

[Photo: 24heures.ch]

Related Stories:
· Undersea Explorer Piccard Dies, Aged 86 [AP]
· An Interview with Jacques Piccard [New York City Diary]
· Submarine Coverage [Jaunted]