SuperFalcon submersible expedition

Judy has spent the first few days hanging out at our beautiful beach and pool. Her ear is still blocked with fluid from the otitis media and her cough, while improved, persists. I'm somewhat beaten-up. I have cuts and scrapes all over and I slammed my right flank into the chase boat platform while getting out of the water on the day that I spent hooking the sub to tow lines and and to the fork lift straps. It was great fun.
Our team of pilots have spent the past two days doing something that we haven't done before. We piloted the sub one-way from one port to another. I took it from the Tala Bay Marina to the Royal Navy Base. Visibility was o.k., about 50 feet. We followed the reef contour line at 90-120 feet of depth. Graham was my co-pilot. A couple of times I had to perform an emergency reset of the flight controls as we were diving toward the reef and the nose would not pull up. No problem. I quickly put the throttle at neutral and performed a quick reset of the pitch. We did not come any closer than 5 or 6 feet to the reef bottom. It is just part of the personality of the sub that you learn to expect and deal with. The UQC (underwater communications; VHF doesn't work underwater) performed well and we were able to keep in contact with the surface support boat the entire time. We came across a relatively flat, sandy bottom at 130 feet. Graham instructed me to perform a gentile landing in the sand. This went well. It was a little unnerving to intentionally run the nose onto the sand. He wanted me to know the impact point (bottom) of the sub and how it fells to land it on its bottom. As we reached our destination, I set the controls for a gentile spiral ascent from 130 feet to the surface. The purpose of the is to allow the pilots to assess the surface conditions, especially any obstacles, before surfacing. Once the sub attained the proper attitude I locked the controls in that position and was able to take my hands off of them to enjoy the slow ride to the surface. There were no apparent obstacles. This was a lot of fun.
Once on the surface, I called for the support boat to tow us into the Navy harbor. However, Graham changed his mind and wanted to do a 3 minute dive to 30-40 feet on a Southerly heading. I slowly took her down to this depth and we were rewarded with the most amazing spectacle of jellyfish. They were magically illuminated. The sea was thick with them. It felt as if we were in a jellyfish aquarium. It was one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen.
We surfaced and made it to the Navy base without incident.
That night, all of the pilots reconvened at the Navy base for a night dive. Graham wanted us to experience this so we are somewhat prepared for any future expeditions. It was interesting. However, there was no visibility in the harbor. The best view was actually from the surface at the pier. The sub with its laser lights on the wings looks like a spacecraft from a science fiction movie.
Unfortunately, that was the end of the expedition. We did meet with them for dinner the following evening and exchanged some photos. We will exchange video sometime in the future. I have some good footage of us surfacing on our back (I was wearing a GoPro camera while piloting the sub). Today, Karen and Graham are heading to Amman for the day to meet with the King. I am hoping that he will make an offer that they cannot refuse. It would be great to be able to base the sub here. The Royal Navy has been very gracious and helpful. Judy and I have fallen in love with Jordan and its people. Regardless of the future plans for the Super Falcon, we will return.
Today, we will relax by the beach and pool. Tomorrow we head to Amman, via Wadi Rum, for our return flight home. I hope to begin posting some pictures later today.

SuperFalcon submersible expedition

So far, I have spent 2 days with Graham Hawkes and his team. The expedition was divided into 3 phases. The first 2 did not involve me. First, they mapped the reef system of the Gulf of Aqaba with a Jordanian research institute. The 2nd phase entailed taking dignitaries down in the sub, including the crown prince of Spain and King Abdullah of Jordan. Something very bad happened. They scene was a frenzy with secret service people. The crew though that they had secured all of the domes, but had not. When they put the sub in the water, it started flooding immediately and the King was trapped with water rising to above his waist. Fortunately, they were able to get the sub out of the water before anyone died. The King was very gracious. Nobody lost their heads!! The next day (after replacing most of the electronics that were fried from the salt water) the King had a successful dive.
I was wondering what my role was in this whole project. It wasn't until the 2nd day that I realized why I was invited here.
I am a test pilot. There are only 13 people, including the designer/builder/owner, that know how to fly this thing. It is a new technology; cutting edge. Nobody knows exactly what it can do, including the designer. It does not conform to any known specifications for a submersible in any country. So we are here to put the sub through its paces and discover its strengths and weaknesses.
The first dive was to refresh my memory about the controls. It went very well. I had already pre-visualized the controls in my mind. I did this dive with Graham (the designer). Next, I did a dive with his right hand man, Lee. He is a retired Navy F-16 fighter pilot and was the test pilot for Steve Fosset's jet propelled car that was to break the land speed record. Steve died in a plane crash in the Nevada desert a couple of years ago.
I had the forward cockpit on this one. He gave me complete control. We took the sub down to the bottom at 140 feet and cruised there for about 10 minutes. It was amazing. We saw many different fish. I had to navigate around small rock outcroppings from the bottom. The entire time we were just 2-3 feet off of the bottom. Then, he said "lets take it up. You can be as aggressive as you want." I said, "are you sure?" "Absolutely" he said. Soooo, at 130 feet I cranked it into full vertical ascent with full throttle forward. We raced to the surface and breached in an inverted position, landing on our back with our heads pressed into the dome. We were giggling like little school girls at this point. The sub promptly righted itself. I caught this on video. The ballast in the sub went flying into the back. Once we regained our composure, we radioed the chase boat that we were on the surface. Nobody had done this before, that is, putting the sub on its back. There had been discussions about whether it was possible, but nobody had tried it before. Super cool.
Tomorrow, I will be making a one-way underwater passage of about an hour from Tala Bay to the Royal Navy Pier. I will be following a contour along the bottom at about 120 feet. I hope to be able to test some of the other features of the sub along the way. Graham said that he wants to accompany me on the journey as my #2. Wish me luck.

Jordanian expedition continued

It took 40 minutes for me to get into this blog tonight. This is the worst high speed internet service I have ever encountered. (Deep breath and exhale).
Following our cliffhanging experience, the next day our guide took us on what was billed as an easy hike to view the "Treasury" in Petra from above. We began the day exhausted from the two previous days. Well, after climbing rocks uphill for nearly 2 hours we were rewarded with a view of the Treasury that very few people get to see. Then we continued to an even higher point called the "Place of Sacrifice." This entailed another couple of hours of clawing our way up rocks. We were not prepared for this as we were told it would be easy. By the time we reached the summit, I (Tim) had become quite dehydrated and was not feeling well. I rested in what little shade there was for 20 minutes while our guide called someone on his cell phone. Over the ridge appeared and angel of mercy. A bedouin woman came to me with water and a kofia (Jordanian head scarf). She wrapped it around my head and I drank the entire bottle of water. Within a few minutes I felt much better. I then found out that we had completed the entire hard part of our journey and that the rest was all downhill, including some actual steps. The woman invited us to the small place she has along the cliffs where she sells handcrafts to tourists. Her English was excellent, having learned it by talking to tourists for 20+ years. We drank hot tea spiced with cardamom and sage. Wow, amazing. We sat and talked and laughed for over 30 minutes. Then, she invited us to her home for a traditional Bedouin dinner that night. We had plans for dinner, but cancelled them in order to have this amazing experience.
Later that day, our driver picked us up and took us to the Bedouin village. We were treated as special guests and had a wonderful dinner of "upside down".