COLLISION—OR NEAR MISS?
By Captain John A. Hack, USN, Commanding Officer, USS Navarro (APA-215)
It is night. You have had the deck of USS Valiant since midnight, three hours ago. You are on course 090, speed 15. Your phone talker reports, “Skunk Alpha, bearing 045, range twenty thousand yards.”
As officer of the deck your mind scans the pages of “Rules of the Road, International and Inland, C.G.-169, United States Coast Guard, May 1, 1959” as accurately as though you were its author.
The talker receives amplification from your well-drilled C.I.C. team.
“Skunk Alpha, course 180, speed 15, on collision course, You are privileged.”
A search of the horizon verifies what you already know, “When two power-driven vessels are crossing, so as to involve a risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her starboard side shall keep out of the way of the other.” (Rule 19). Through your glasses you can easily make out the masthead and range light of a large steamer. Her green side light faintly glimmers on the horizon.
From the talker, “Combat recommends that you hold course and speed.”
You concur, and wish that you were the burdened vessel so you could keep control of the situation. But you must obey Rule 21: “When, by any of these Rules, one of two vessels is to keep out of the way, the other shall keep her course and speed. When from any cause, the latter vessel finds herself so close that collision cannot be avoided by the action of the giving way vessel alone, she also shall take such action as will best aid to avert collision.”
Combat verifies what your careful bearings on the ship have indicated—she is still on a collision course. “Risk of collision can, when circumstances permit, be ascertained by carefully watching the compass bearing of an approaching vessel. If the bearing does not appreciably change, such risk should be deemed to exist.” (Rule 2).
On she comes. You call the Captain, of course. But your mind sees headlines. COLLISION AT SEA! Those headlines always were so remote until now.
Still she comes. “In obeying and construing these Rules, any action taken should be positive, in ample time, and with due regard to the observance of good seamanship.” (Rule 1). That sounded so elementary in the wardroom the other night, when you were discussing Rules of the Road situations.
Ten thousand yards. Eight thousand yards. You know what you have to do. If the other officer of the deck doesn’t slow, or turn, or stop soon, you have the responsibility of HELPING him to avert a collision. But when? How close is too close? How did you ever get yourself into this situation? The book always was so clear that you took action at the point of extremis, that point at which it would be necessary for both vessels to maneuver if a collision was to be averted. So clear that your mind had assumed that such a point would stand out like a neon sign in the water. Six thousand yards. Five thousand. The Captain is standing beside you, but he can’t see the point of extremis any better than you can. He takes the conn. He orders five short blasts.
But on she comes.
Then, like a cool breeze coming off the shore after a humid, sticky day, you hear a calm voice from Combat. “Point of extremis will be at 1,400 yards. At that time recommend you put your rudder hard right and go ahead flank.”
The Captain orders five short blasts again. Four thousand yards. Three thousand yards. Your opponent looks as large as an apartment house. Two thousand yards. The temptation to back emergency is almost overwhelming, but months of discipline have taught you, and years have taught your Captain, that you can’t.
The quiet voice from Combat brings you assurance. “When I say mark, I recommend that you put the rudder hard right and go ahead flank.”
How can they see that point of extremis? Are they right?
“Mark!”
You hear the Captain order, “Hard right rudder! All ahead flank!”
On she comes. But now you see her in a different perspective. The bow of Valiant avoids her as though she had the plague. She keeps coming, but no longer as a dangerous antagonist. You didn’t even hear the one short blast Valiant sounded as she came around. All you can see is a large ship steaming parallel to your course and slowly opening in range.
You’ve had a near miss, thanks to an alert CIC officer—an officer who attended Emergency Shiphandling School, drilled on the Shiphandling Device, and had the initiative and intelligence to devise a table to allow his ship to perform as well as the machine. Prior to this eventful night, with the aid of the ship’s tactical data, he had plotted the actual path of Valiant as she steamed at various speeds, put the rudder hard right, and increased speed to flank. He had superimposed upon these plots targets proceeding on collision courses at various speeds, and arranged them into two categories. In one, the target is proceeding on a course at right angles to own ship’s track. In the second, the target is proceeding on a course 45 degrees from own ship’s track. He determined the true point of extremis for each situation, then allowed for a dead time of 30 seconds—a time lag between when an officer willed a turn to be made and when his order would be carried out. He reasoned that the other ship would not increase speed. The worst she would probably do was maintain course and speed. If she turned, slowed, or backed, Valiant would be only safer from harm. (See Figure 1).
The Captain was furious with him at first. Later he gave the ensign a word of advice. “When you find something new that’s worthwhile don’t keep it quiet.” So now his work isn’t just a sheet of paper carried in his pocket. It’s encased in plastic and posted in C.I.C. and on the bridge.
Valiant now has one more tool to assist in following Rule 29, “Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master, or crew thereof, ... of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seaman, or by the special circumstances of the case.”
POINT OF EXTREMIS—RANGE TABLE
SITUATION:
- VALIANT PRIVILEGED VESSEL IN CROSSING SITUATION
- COLLISION OR NEAR COLLISION C.P.A.
TO FIND THE RANGE OF POINT OF EXTREMIS
(Target range when action must be taken)
- Select Table A or B, the nearest angle between contact’s course and VALIANT’S course.
- Enter table with contact’s speed and VALIANT’S speed.
RECOMMENDATION TO CONN AT POINT OF EXTREMIS
- Hard Right Rudder.
- All Ahead Flank.
Table A: Contact at 45° |
|
| VALIANT SPEED |
| ||
CONTACT SPEED | 4 | 8 | 12 | 15 | 17 | |
5 | 1250 | 1150 | 1050 | 1050 | 1050 | |
10 | 2150 | 1750 | 1400 | 1350 | 1300 | |
15 | 3150 | 2200 | 1800 | 1650 | 1600 | |
20 | 4100 | 2900 | 2250 | ... 1950 | 1900 | |
25 | 5100 | 3350 | 2700 | 2350. | 2250 | |
30 | 6150 | 3950 | 3250 | 2750 | 2600 | |
Table B: Contact at 90° |
|
| VALIANT SPEED |
| ||
CONTACT SPEED | 4 | 8 | 12 | 15 | 17 | |
5 | 1000 | 900 | 900 | 850 | 850 | |
10 | 1700 | 1300 | 1200 | 1100 | 1000 | |
15 | 2600 | 1750 | 1550 | 1400 | 1300 | |
20 | 3500 | 2250 | 1900 | 1750 | 1650 | |
25 | 4400 | 2800 | 2350 | 2100 | 2000 | |
30 | 5500 | 3400 | 2800 | 2550 | 2450 |
Figure 1
NEW HORIZONS IN WEAPONS
By Brigadier General G. O. Van Orden, USMC (Ret.)
Nearly every day we hear of some new technological breakthrough in the glamour weapons—rockets and missiles. We hear little of real progress in the common weapons with which Marines must fight. But I predict that a new day is at hand. We have, in fact, a revolutionary handgun shooting triangular cartridges from an open chamber. This breakthrough—potentially as important as the development of a workable breech-loader—is only the beginning. Successful adaptation to large calibers can offer a whole new family of light-weight weapons exactly suited to the concept of the Marine force-in-readiness.
To see what this weapons breakthrough is and how it works, let’s review quickly the history of weapons. The armorers of 400 years ago knew that the sequence of firing a muzzle loader was unsatisfactory. The ramrod had to travel the length of the bore six-times: load the charge, withdraw, load the projectile, withdraw, swab out, withdraw. The answer was obviously a breech loader, but it was barely 100 years ago that mechanical skills caught up with mechanical thinking. The big problem was gas leakage and a quick breech closure. Then, in quick succession came the primer, the expanding brass cartridge case, the DeBange gas check for big guns, the interrupted-screw breech block and the lug-locking bolt. We then had a revolutionary new family of weapons—and we still have this basic family.
Over 80 years ago the Spaniards saw that the answer to saving time, or reducing malfunctions, lay in an open or split chamber—something like a clam shell that could open its jaws, grab a round, and fire. The idea was simple—like the breech loader—but no one could make it work. The cartridge always split. The problem became one of those engineering classics. No one said it was impossible, they just couldn’t find the answer.
One night a young ordnance engineer, David Dardick, was working for practice some problems in old textbooks. In a 40-year-old physics text he found this:
“A non-circular tube subjected to internal pressure tends to become round before it ruptures.”
This was the answer: the shape of the case. Cylindrical cases just couldn’t take the irregular give of a split chamber. But a triangular case can; in fact, it can hold together in an open chamber. You need only lay it in on a V-shaped platform and hold it down with a strap across the top. This is the Triangular Round—the “TROUND” for short. Here was the answer to the problem of complicated breech closures. A really rapid-firing weapon could be developed if the gas could be properly sealed.
The answer to this was the same as the answer to breech-loading: use an expanding case. For the closed-chamber breech-loader the material was brass, and nothing else works really as well. For an open chamber without the need to extract, the material could be softer—aluminum or even plastic. The most promising material appears to be the Celanese plastic Fortiflex. The whole bullet is enclosed. Now we are dealing only with plastic triangular cases for loading—loading without reciprocation, with a reduction of mechanical parts. This speeds up loading and firing, and reduces the chances for failures. As to sealing of gas, the system is better than a breech loader. It develops higher velocities with lower peak pressures from equivalent powder charges, and the pressures are more uniform.
This is the breakthrough. The weapon is not just on the drawing board or in feasibility tests. It exists in the Dardick handgun. The same weapon can change barrels to become a different caliber or to go from “pistol” to rifle.
Some significant advantages in this system are lighter weight, faster and more reliable loading, faster firing, changeable barrels, selective loading, more accuracy and less apparent kick, and no “cook-off.”
After 100 years, any new principle in a handgun is welcome news. But it is not just the new handgun we have now that deserves attention. We see, if we will look, a whole new horizon in weapons. Lighter, more reliable, faster-loading, faster-firing weapons for the Marine division can be had. All that is needed is a requirement and a determination to see the problem through. The requirement exists. (Reprinted by permission from the May 1960 Marine Corps Gazette. Copyright 1960 by the Marine Corps Association.)
MERCHANT MARINE CONSTRUCTION IN ODESSA
By Professor C. P. Lemieux, U. S. Naval Academy
As recently as 1956, Odessa seemed like a ghost town. To one visiting this Black Sea port after prolonged stays in Hamburg and Copenhagen, Russia’s second port seemed comparatively inactive.
Soviet planning of merchant ship construction has given a new importance to the Odessa-Kherson- Nikolaev area, however. The current Seven-Year Plan calls for an 83.7 per cent increase in production over the 1958 tonnage figure.
New yards in Kherson, on the left bank of the Dnepr, will construct tankers up to 15,000 tons and freighters up to 20,000 tons. During the last year, new equipment was acquired, including hydraulic presses exerting up to 500 tons pressure for bending cold plates to the required shape, with a great saving of time over old methods. Recent units entering service from Kherson were Thilisi, a 16,000-ton ocean-going tanker, and Metallurg Baikov, a large cargo vessel.
No less important than the new construction facilities is the increase in equipment for repair yards. These additions call for the progressive adoption of modern methods, with greater specialization of personnel and standardization of machinery. Stock-piling of parts and facilities for storage and maintenance figure prominently in the plans.
At the present time, tankers of the Kazbek class and colliers of the Chulim class, now in quantity production, are being repaired according to a new progressive plan.
The present repair capacity at Odessa is cramped by the limited dock space. Units are now moored in groups of three ships side by side, putting a severe load on crane facilities, electrical outlets, etc. The planned increase in docks calls for 1,835 meters of space with cranes, transport equipment, outlets for electric current, compressed air, steam, etc. This should double the capacity of the yard.
Modernization of present equipment is expected to increase output in certain operations, affecting the 150 vessels annually admitted for repair. The pneumatic equipment which has been tried out at the Novorossick yards is doubling and tripling the former performances. Semi-automatic welding in a gaseous atmosphere is included in the new procedures. Complete mechanization of foundry techniques and the use of gas fuels will increase the number of the largest propellers now being made.
The transition from military to merchant marine units in Russian yards has made possible a greater production of specialized units than was available from Western yards. Tankers, particularly, were hard to come by, although until recent years the Soviet need for them was less acute. In the meantime, a number of specialized vessels were produced for specific tasks. Perhaps the most noteworthy of recent units is the whaling factory and fleet tender Sovietskaya Ukraina, a 44,000-ton vessel described in the Italian press as the most complete unit of her kind in the world. Details of Sovietskaya Ukraina indicate the same high construction standards at the Nikolaevsk yards, where she was built, as are apparent from photos and descriptions of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin, built at the Admiralty yards in Leningrad.
With increased ship movement into the Mediterranean and the Middle East, the Odessa area becomes increasingly important as a center of merchant marine construction, Steel supplies from the Urals, Donetz Basin, and the Zaporozhe areas, place it among the favored sites for this activity.
Thus 250 years after Peter the First committed Russia to a sea-going policy, the Soviet Union finds itself oriented toward a policy of developing an oceanic navy. Three-fourths of her present-day frontiers are maritime, and she maintains an active interest in the extensive Asian coast belonging to a major ally. Her position as the leading continental power has necessarily reduced the availability to her of foreign bases, but she has shown an active interest in such strategic points as the Dardanelles, Tripoli, and Eritrea, the Kiel Canal, Spitzbergen, and the territories touched by Bellingshausen at the South Pole. The recent treaty with Indonesia raises the possibility of bases at Ambon, a mere 600 miles from Australia and 700 miles from the Philippines. Closer to home, the area of Abadan-Basra has been under scrutiny as a future key to the Middle East, while Saseno, Albania, has been built up as a Red fortress in the Mediterranean.
OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL
By Captain R.W. Clark, USN, Officer-in-Charge, U. S. Naval School, Officer Candidate
Much publicity has been given curriculum changes at the U. S. Naval Academy and the crying need for higher education for officers of the Navy. The NROTC Program has also had its share of publicity. Yet these two units furnish the Navy with less than one-third of the annual input of junior officers required to man the modern Navy. In round figures, the annual input at the bottom is about 6,000 junior officers.
The Naval Academy’s average input is about 700 junior officers a year and the NROTC accounts for about 1,300 junior officers per year. The remainder of the 6,000 enter the Navy from the U. S. Naval School, Officer Candidate, which is housed in wooden barracks built during World War II on Coddington Point at the Naval Base in Newport, Rhode Island.
The school was established in 1951 to provide a rapid source of junior officers for the rapidly expanding Navy during the Korean conflict. It was planned that the school be disestablished once that conflict was terminated. The Navy has found, however, that the Naval Academy, the NROTC Program, NAVCAD Program, AOC and other procurement sources cannot keep up with the demands of the service in manning its cold-war Navy. Hence, the U. S. Naval School, Officer Candidate (OCS), has continued to operate at near full capacity for nine years, and there is no prospect for its being disestablished so long as the manning level remains as it is at present. To date, this school has furnished the Navy with 32,000 junior officers who have made up the major portion of the officer corps of many ships and stations for nine years.
It is true, however, that though the number of graduates is large, the bulk of these young officers serve on active duty for only three years, followed by four years in the inactive reserve.
Candidates for OCS are chosen at Navy Recruiting Stations from applicants who meet the basic requirement of having been graduated from an accredited college with a baccalaureate degree. Upon being sworn in, they are informed that if they pass the course at OCS they are obligated to serve three years on active duty as commissioned officers. If they fail the course, they are obligated to complete only two years in an enlisted status in the Navy. The average attrition at OCS has been between 18 and 20 per cent, the majority being for academic failure.
The course is purely a naval officer indoctrination course based in part on the Navy curriculum at NROTC units. The basic courses of instruction are: Naval Engineering; Naval Orientation (which includes leadership); Navigation; Seamanship; Naval Operations; and Naval Weapons. The duration of the entire course is four months, and all the aforementioned courses are taught during this four months except engineering and seamanship, each of which is covered in two months. The pace of instruction is about one and one-half times that of a normal college. The reason for this fast pace was well stated by the first commanding officer of the school and still holds true today: “By applying the steady pressure of intensive instruction on all students, the school has found that most of those who are unable to bear the pressure, mental, physical, and emotional, applied constantly for sixteen weeks, either emotionally block themselves from success, or are so trapped by their own academic or military inaptitude, that their over-all deportment soon qualifies them for disenrollment.”
In addition to the rigorous academic requirements, students are also required to undergo training under arms in military drill. The time spent in this phase of the training is about equal to that spent by the enlisted men at “boot camp.” Students are organized into sections, companies, and battalions much the same as at the U. S. Naval Academy. They are subjected to strict military discipline under a set of student regulations. An over-accumulation of demerits or a poor military aptitude mark is reason for disenrollment.
Classes vary in size but average around 500 each; they have been as low as 150 and as high as 1,100. The size of each class is affected by the time of year and the needs of the Navy for junior officers. Attrition is a variable, dependent on the quality of the students and their motivation for a commission. At the present writing, the needs of the Navy are very pressing, thus the “cutting score” for the Officer Qualification Test for entry has been lowered and, consequently, the attrition has risen to 25 per cent. There are two classes in session at all times. These classes overlap so that when one class graduates, the junior class has completed one-half of its course. A new class is convened on the Monday following the Friday graduation. Many innovations have been adopted at OCS recently in order to make graduation week ceremonies more impressive. These changes have served not only to increase the Navy’s interest in OCS, but also to engender an esprit de corps among the students.
In addition to its major mission of indoctrinating officer candidates, the staff of OCS is also responsible for the indoctrination of all newly appointed LDOs in the Navy through a short course of seven weeks’ duration. The OCS staff also provides similar indoctrination for those enlisted men who are appointed to commissioned status in the Medical Service Corps, and this year, for the first time, the staff has undertaken the task of indoctrinating all of the newly commissioned members of the Navy’s Dental Corps by means of a condensed four-week indoctrination course.
Once a year a group of young enlisted men is selected from the regular Navy for commissioned status. These men have had little or no college training but have exhibited a high degree of intelligence and career motivation. They are sent to OCS and integrated with the current class of Officer Candidates. Upon successful completion of the course, these students are given a regular Navy commission. The number of these integrated students has dwindled in recent years due to the advent of the Navy Enlisted Scientific Educational Program. It is interesting to note that the men in the NESEP Program also attend OCS for a four-month refresher course and a broadening of their naval education. The records of OCS indicate that the integrated students and the NESEP students consistently attain the highest academic and military aptitude marks in the school. They also serve as good examples for other OCs in their integrated class.
An additional program is carried on each summer during college vacation time. This is the indoctrination program for Reserve Officer Candidates (ROC). These college students have joined the Naval Reserve while in college and attend OCS for the first half of the OC course for two months during the summer between any two years of their undergraduate work and complete the last two months during a following summer or after graduation. The attrition in this particular group is rather high since these young men are not as old and mature as the standard OC. This program however, furnishes the Navy with about 200 ensigns per year. Such a variety of programs being carried on at OCS requires that the staff of 82 officers and 45 CPO instructors be versatile indeed.
Although the primary mission of OCS is to provide the Navy with reserve officers, a token number of the graduates of OCS (about 5 or 6 per cent) submit requests for augmentation into the regular Navy. It is firmly believed, however, that if the course were extended to six months, the school were provided modern, permanent buildings, and continued steps were taken to enhance its prestige and build up esprit de corps, it would become an excellent source of permanent naval officers and, accordingly, its intake reduced and selectivity improved. Since the cost to the government per graduate from OCS is about one-tenth of the cost per graduate from the regular NROTC and about one-thirtieth of the cost per graduate from the Naval Academy, and these junior officers from OCS continue to uphold standards with their contemporaries, the entire Navy should give a great deal of thought to the permanent establishment of OCS.
THE NOTEBOOK
Larger German Warships: The supreme commander of allied forces in Europe has formally supported a West German move to build bigger warships urgently wanted for defense of the Baltic Sea.
Allied officials said General Lauris Norstad also has recommended that the Germans be allowed to manufacture electronic mines hitherto banned as an offensive weapon.
Norstad’s recommendations have been received at the London headquarters of the seven-nation Western European union formed in 1954 as a watchdog alliance to insure against runaway German rearmament.
If, as seems assured, Norstad’s advice is accepted, formal amendments will be written into the revised Brussels Treaty, which allowed the Germans six years ago to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
West Germany now is permitted to build warships up to only 3,000 tons and submarines up to 350 tons.
Informants said Norstad’s letter supports on military grounds West Germany’s request to build two 6,000-ton destroyers capable of carrying dual-purpose rocket launchers—the sort that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. One 6,000-ton supply ship also would be authorized.
The supreme commander’s letter said these amendments would allow West Germany “properly to fulfill its role in the Baltic.”
Under NATO’s strategy, the Germans have the main responsibility for the defense of the Baltic and for insuring that Russia’s powerful fleet is barred from breaking out into the Atlantic in case of war. (The Baltimore Sun, 23 August 1960.)
Soviet Fishing Fleet: Newfoundland fishermen are resentful of the considerable increase in the number of Soviet vessels fishing this year on the Grand Banks. The Soviet fishing fleet in the area consisted of 160 vessels with crews totaling 25,000 men and women. (The Christian Science Monitor, 11 July 1960.)
Safety at Sea: Forty nations of the 54 attending countries had signed the 1960 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea as of 17 July, the closing date.
Countries which have not yet signed can still accept the convention. It will enter into force one year after ratification or acceptance by not less than 15 nations, of which seven have one million tons of shipping.
Forty countries which have signed the new Convention follow: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroun, Canada, China, Denmark, Dominican Republic. Finland, France, German Federal Republic, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Liberia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, U.S.S.R., United Arab Republic, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela and Yugoslavia.
When signing, Bulgaria, Hungary and the U.S.S.R. made a declaration that they believed that certain regulations of Chapter VIII of the Convention, concerning the procedure for admitting nuclear ships into foreign ports, may impede the development of nuclear ships. They therefore do not consider themselves committed to these particular provisions. (Marine News, August 1960.)
Ship Research: The Maritime Administration has been advised to adopt a program of budgeting between ten and twelve million dollars annually for research.
The Maritime Research Committee’s advisory report noted that the cost of subsidizing the nation’s merchant fleet had grown “at an alarming rate” in recent years. This has spurred the maritime agency into sponsoring research programs to make the fleet more competitive in the world market.
The committee looked to automation as the principal means of making the U. S. fleet competitive. It suggested that a minimum of $10,000,000 be spent annually for ten years for research to be carried out “particularly through universities.”
About 15 per cent of the agency’s research allocation should be devoted to such maritime-related subjects as hydro-dynamics, propellers and foils, and atmosphere-ocean interactions, the report said.
“Of all probable war situations, the expanding cold war is by far the most important to the U. S. maritime capabilities,” the report said. “It would be most unwise for this country to place itself in the vulnerable position of relying entirely on foreign fleets for its ocean shipping needs.” (Edward A. Morrow in The New York Times, 22 August 1960.)
English Channel Tunnel: In Paris and London the $365,000,000 project to build a tunnel under the English Channel is being actively discussed. Last March an internationally sponsored organization, calling itself The Channel Tunnel Study Group, submitted a detailed report to the French and British governments, saying in effect that a tunnel is feasible, profitable and capable of being financed. Both governments officially said they favored the project and started negotiations that may lead to a formal treaty.
For the movement of persons and goods the Channel represents one of the worst bottlenecks in Europe. Most observers believe that a tunnel would not only speed movement but also act as a kind of catalyst increasing trade and perhaps even bringing together the two rival European trading blocks, the London-oriented outer seven, and the Paris-oriented common market. The Channel Tunnel Study Group proposes a 32-mile rail tunnel linking Dover and Calais. A bridge was studied and found to be too costly. An auto tunnel would provide too many exhaust problems. Using piggy-back techniques, trains would carry cars and trucks as well as regular passengers through then tunnel at 65 miles an hour.
It would probably cost an accompanied vehicle the equivalent of $20.00, against $30.00 for the present ferry crossing, and the crossing would be three times as fast—42 minutes against two hours and a half.
The Stream: The Gulf Stream is not a river of hot water flowing through the ocean, but a narrow ribbon of high velocity water acting as a boundary that prevents the warm water on the Sargasso Sea side (right-hand) from overflowing the colder, denser waters on the inshore (left-hand) side.
There is scarcely any more firmly rooted idea in the mind of the layman than the notion that the Gulf Stream keeps the European climate warm. So long as it was believed that the Gulf Stream was a “river’ of warm water, this idea did make sense. It is no longer possible to be so certain of the direct climatological influence of the Gulf Stream, for now it seems that it is not so much the Stream itself that is important, as the position and temperatures of the water on its right-hand flank.
In fact, Iselin went so far as to speculate, in 1940, that warming of the European climate might actually be least during periods of increasing transport of the Gulf Stream.
For all we know, the European climate might be warmer if the direction of rotation of the North Atlantic Eddy were reversed. (H. Stommel. “The Gulf Stream, a Physical and Dynamical Description,'' University of California Press, 1958, as quoted in Oceanus, June, 1960.)
Airborne Ship Pilot: A helicopter landed on the San Francisco-bound SS President Cleveland nine miles outside the Golden Gate. The ’copter’s passenger was the first bar pilot ever to board an ocean liner by air.
Recommendations call for future helicopter operations to be centered around a permanently anchored tower which would have a light, radar, sonar, and communications in addition to a heliport. Bar pilots could be accommodated with greater comfort than in existing pilot boats. (Marine News, August 1960.)
Cunard Birthday: With the sailing of the 207-foot paddle wheeler Britannia on 4 July 1840 with 115 passengers from Liverpool to Boston, the Cunard Line began a passenger ship service 120 years ago that has grown to today’s total of eleven liners capable of transporting 11,387 passengers.
Besides owning the world’s largest liner—the 83,673-ton Queen Elizabeth—Cunard can also boast that Marconi once used its Lucania as a workshop. The vessel became in 1901 the first Atlantic liner with a wireless system.
Though Cunard has become part of English tradition, its founder Sir Samuel Cunard was born of American parents in Nova Scotia.
Sir Samuel was thwarted in his native Canada and the United States in efforts to alert business men to the possibilities of steamship travel. Disappointed but not defeated, he turned to England where financiers George Burns and David Maclver and marine engineer Robert Napier joined him in establishing the line. They then persuaded the British government to give them a contract for Atlantic-mail service. (Patricia Ryan, New York Herald Tribune, 4 July 1960.)
Shaped Charges Cut Lines: Explosive kits for cutting ships’ mooring lines have been developed. The device, called a shaped charge cutter or explosion kit, consists of a small explosive charge that fits snugly around anchor chain or steel mooring cable. On electrical command it explodes, cutting the chain or cable. A “cousin” to the shaped charge type of armor piercing weapon developed during World War II, the device can instantly sever steel lines permitting, in emergency situations, rapid departure of ships at anchor or those moored to piers or other ships. Chief difference between the shaped charge and other explosives is the Munroe Effect. Essentially, the shape of the explosive as well as the point of detonation cause the energy to be expended in a single direction. (Marine Journal, June 1960.)
Russian Hydrofoil: A factory has started assembling the Soviet Union’s largest hydrofoil boat, the 300-passenger Sputnik which will have a top speed approaching 62 mph, according to Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Regular passenger service with hydrofoil craft is reported expanding at a rapid rate on Soviet waterways. A Rocket-4 has begun scheduled service across Lake Baikal. A 150-passenger Meteor hydrofoil made her first Moscow-Gorki run early in July and later will be assigned to Gorki-Kuibyshev operations on the Volga River.
More than 20 hydrofoil Rockets, each capable of carrying 66 passengers, are expected to be in regular service on the Volga and such large Siberian rivers as the Lena, Angara, Yenisei and Irtysh by the end of the year. (Aviation Week, 25 July 1960.)
HOW IT WORKS—THE SKYSAIL
In high speed bail-outs, the opening process of the standard personnel parachute is a nylon explosion. The growth of pressure in the canopy is so rapid and powerful that the fabric surface is accelerated radially to near-sonic velocity with explosive violence. Every member—cloth, lines, and risers—comes rigidly taut in an instant and the structure shatters like a paper bag. When, on the other hand, the damage sustained by the canopy does not cause it to collapse, and a moderate rate of descent ensues, the parachute may be said to have opened successfully.
Here the fate of the man with his body-harness attached to the risers of the parachute depends mainly upon his body position and the magnitude of the opening shock when it hits him. He may be in any attitude at this instant. Within a small fraction of a second his body is reoriented into alignment with the parachute system, and in the next fraction of a second he is decelerated to final velocity. This is a very painful experience that can and does cause fatal injuries when the bail-out speed is excessive. The parachute is generally a good deal stronger than the man and is capable of snapping his body like a twig without itself showing signs of strain.
Parachutes also have the disconcerting characteristic of opening faster at high altitudes than at low altitudes. The results of numerous tests show that the canopy filling time not only diminishes with increasing air speed but also is directly proportional to the decrease in air density with altitude. The net effect is a much sharper opening shock at high altitudes, particularly when the parachutist free-falls long enough to approach his terminal velocity.
In April 1954, the Bureau of Aeronautics issued a request to industry for proposals to develop an improved emergency escape parachute to be worn by naval airmen in the new high performance jet aircraft coming into service. The requirements began with a safe opening speed of 400 knots near sea level and advanced stepwise upward to 30,000 feet, where the opening shock was to be less than 25 g at somewhat lesser speeds. Container integrity was to be guaranteed at 400 knots indicated airspeed, which is equivalent to 650 knots plus at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
At the other end of the spectrum were requirements for opening reliability at very low speeds and altitudes (escape during takeoff and landing) that were not altogether compatible with the limitations imposed by the high speed requirements. It was considered mandatory that the new parachute open reliably when dropped from 200 feet above the ground at speeds commensurate with aircraft minimum takeoff and landing speeds. The critical nature of the requirement becomes evident when we note that an unsupported body will fall 200 feet in 3.5 seconds.
After this, the other performance requirements seem incidental, but considerable importance was attached to these as well. The average sea level rate of descent with a weight of 270 pounds must not be greater than 22 fps. The average amplitude of oscillation during steady descent must not exceed 15 degrees from the vertical; 30 to 40 degrees is accepted with the conventional parachute. A new harness compatible with the parachute and its container would be developed. The bulk and weight of all components must be an absolute minimum consistent with the other requirements. In particular, the container, to be worn on the back, must have a maximum thickness of only 2.75 inches on the vertical centerline so that the smallest Navy fighter aircraft could be equipped with the new parachute.
The parachute design problem presented was formidable. The general approach adopted drew on all recorded parachute knowledge then available as well as a large body of practical lore, the unrecorded experience of specialists in the field. It was considered unavoidable that parachute and container be treated as an integrated unit because of the importance of controlling deployment at speeds greater than 250 to 300 knots. The conventional container dumps the canopy into the airstream like a load of wet wash and extensive damage caused by non-uniform loading limits its usefulness to speeds of less than 300 knots. By means of a deployment bag the ultimate speed of the standard 28-foot parachute may be increased to about 350 knots with 270 pounds.
The use of a deployment bag in personnel parachute systems was to be avoided if possible in order to keep the rigging and packing procedure as simple and conventional as possible. The approach taken in designing the container was to limit the area of the pack opening sufficiently to exercise some control over the canopy as it was extracted by the pilot chute and its own inherent drag. Only the top or crown of the canopy was released at the same time as the pilot chute; the skirt was retained in the bottom of the container until the canopy was stretched out. Then the suspension lines, retained in snug stow loops, were freed by extraction of the skirt and payed out in orderly fashion. The uniformity of canopy loading obtained by this means was not far from the best attainable with a deployment bag and enabled the parachute to open safely at a speed of 400 knots.
Jumpers find the low shock characteristic of the Skysail, coupled with its positive opening tendency, reassuring as they approach the bail-out point in a test run. It is also comforting during the descent to know that one will not have to contend with a large oscillation on landing. A personnel parachute system has thus been created which can be depended upon to function safely over the full range of speeds and altitudes at which a man can bail out and expect to survive blast-induced injuries.