Saturday, April 17, 2004


More Cutaways

Click to zoomI did a Google image search for cutaway, because I like cutaway drawings. I came up with the accompanying drawing of how the rescue of a number of sailors trapped in the sunken USS Squalus was accomplished.

At 8:40 AM on 23 May 1939, [the submarine] USS Squalus was just beginning a test dive in the Atlantic, not far from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. All indications were that everything was ready for a safe dive. However, just after she submerged, the engine rooms began to flood -- somehow the main induction valve, a large opening that brought air to the engines while on the surface, had opened. Quickly, the submarine's after compartments filled with water, drowning 26 men there, and Squalus settled to the bottom, 243 feet deep. In the forward compartments, sealed by watertight doors, 33 men remained alive. Their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Oliver F. Naquin, began survival planning. Since the water depth and temperature made ascent with the self-contained 'Momsen Lung' very dangerous, he elected to wait for rescue from above.

Within a few hours, other ships were searching for the missing Squalus, unfortunately in the wrong place. However, in the early afternoon a distant signal rocket was seen from a sister submarine, USS Sculpin (SS-191). Communication via the sunken sub's rescue bouy was soon established...


USS Squalus (SS-192) -- Rescue of Survivors, 23-25 May 1939

Click to zoomHere's a brutally cool cutaway of the F35. Click on the image to zoom it to full-size.

Click to zoomNot exactly sure what this is, but it might be a Fusion Reactor. Found it on Columbia University's Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics site. Click on the image to zoom to full-size. Looks a tad bulkier than the Mr. Fusion reactor featured in the film Back to the Future.

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