A War-ready Submersible Aircraft, 1920: the Tessaurian

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 892

DARPA has had a long-standing Christmas wish—a high-speed, durable, fast, agile tacticly-beautiful submersible aircraft.  Such a thing has evidently been on the wish list of many agencies in many countries for many years. 

I found the Royal Navy’s version of the DARPA wish in the 24 January 1920 issue of The Illustrated London News—the Tessaurian, a dreamable plane capable of long flight and long trips under the sea, as well as being able to float on the water and land on dry earth.

Even the modern Tessaurian has been evasive—certainly this 1920 version is nothing short of nothing.  The craft just looks too bumpy to do well in any sort of fluid environment, air or liquid, the thickness of its skin (necessary for the heavy undersea pressures) looking just too heavy to lift off the ground.  Of course the powertrain is suspect, and the retracted wings don’t look like they would do anything to glide the beast further underwater, assuming it got there (on purpose) to begin with.  Even though I doubt that it could fly, it may be able to float a bit—I do think that it could sink like a champ.  

And so I reproduce these heady, unacknowledged and unclaimed drawings (“designed by a leading aircraft company”), as I can’t find anything offhand online that comes remotely close to its age and concept. 

An undergraduate (!) team (headed by Daniel B. Coltey et alia )at Auburn came up with the following research paper earlier this year: “Conceptual Design of a Submersible Tactical Insertion Aircraft” “This…senior design program…the creation of a conceptual design for a submersible airplane is being undertaken as a response in part to a challenge by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).” The authors then state the checklist of DARPA’s needs:  “The design is expected to be a clandestine, coastal insertion vehicle with specific abilities of an airplane, surface ship, and submarine vessel, which would greatly increase the tactical ability of the United States. The aircraft is expected to accommodate eight passengers, including any necessary equipment and operators, and an additional 2,000 pounds of cargo, and also to have an unrefueled range of 1,000 nautical miles in cruise flight, 200 nautical miles surface transit or very low altitude flight, and 24 nautical miles of submerged travel. The aircraft requirements also include the ability to complete one tactical transit (1,000 nautical miles airborne, 100 nautical miles surface, and 12 nautical miles subsurface movement) in a time limit of eight hours. This concept also addresses challenges in the areas of structural design, effective propulsion in dual fluid flow regimes, and control surface duality…”  I’d want one, too. 

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Comments

[Rick]

I find it fascinating that you note (!) the team of undergrads at Auburn who responded to the DARPA challenge. My experience indicates that the most-brilliant ideas often are born in young minds.

That's not to say there is not an important role for the silverbacks like you and me to shepherd the idea into a usable form, only that the flashes of insight seem to occur more in new brains than in old ones.

Einstein? In his twenties when he did his most paradigm-shattering work. Mathematicians and physicists are particularly illustrative of my theory of young brains hosting flashes of insight.

They know it, too! When I was at caltech, a buddy was working in Feynman's lab at the request of the good doctor himself. My friend was 18 at the time. Dick understood the need for fresh neurons!

[John Ptak]

Well, let's hope that your theory doesn't envelope the lot of us, Dr. Rick. I'd hate to think that the best food I'll ever eat has already been eaten, and maybe even by someone else. You're right, historically, that the big ideas have been had by young minds more often than not, but not all the time. Pauling, v Helmholtz, Copernicus, Leonardo, Gamow, Wheeler and on and on still had big thoughts late in life. (I know, the question of whether they were their best thoughts is something I don't want to answer, but they were still thinking big.) Maybe its a question of being osified by more rigid thinking. I'll have to go with Dr. House on this and just go look for the very different stuff and hope that it turns out to be interesting.

[Daniel Coltey]

I just found today that a few web sites have referenced the paper that I and my fellow undergrads (now all graduates, believe it or not we made it :^)) wrote during our senior year at Auburn University. I will be the first to acknowledge that we were all very 'green' in the art/science of design, but I'd like to think we considered at least most of the problems given in the solicitation. There are other (probably better) designs out there too, but I hope that being young and inexperienced doesn't dissuade any other budding engineers from taking on huge challenges. We all had fun on this project, and possibly learned a little, too.