P-MAN XIV Update #12 - The panther finally captures its prey

29 March 2012

Success!! First light! No, that's for a telescope. First image! That's for a UROV.

The Stockbridge High School Underwater Robotics Team conquered the leak issues they've had and successfully swam their vehicle and imaged the Corsair. It's not that there were no other challenges. There were. But this group of young adults is managing to overcome them as they arise. First, the vehicle was trimmed nose low. Then the video feed got scrambled. Then and then and then. But the bottom line is this team overcame all of that and imaged a World War Two airplane that was shot down 68 years ago, deploying half way around the world on their own dime, with their purpose-built machine. Fantastic. Now let's see this story in pictures:

One of the first images from Panther 4!

An image of the image taker.

Art shot (by Flip, showing off his cool little GoPro camera).

Spice Koshiba, our boat Captain.

Pat, ready to dive. Many of us have had experiences in wet suits
that make us smile like this. Make up your own caption.

Panther 4, getting ready for launch by the morning crew.

It's not leaking!

Line tending can be pretty rigorous.

Buck at the control station.

We used to look at something like this and say, "Now THAT's a ship."

Just had to reconsider...yes, friends, THIS is a ship...

...and if you look closely, you can see that it has its own helicopter pad
and an internal well deck for its own ship-to-shore "Captain's gig."

Photo by Pat: Flip showing off his cool little GoPro camera.

Afternoon team manning their stations, photo by Pat.

Pat, on the boat, took this picture of an ROV team member, on the boat,
taking a photo of Flip, on the bottom, with the ROV. Flip NEVER misses a photo op.

They even got the sonar up and running. Photo by Pat.

The morning crew went out and that consisted of Barb, Buck, Scott and Taylor. They proved that the leaks were fixed. But of course as one problem is solved in life, another always crops up. After their time 'at sea', we put back into port, swapped crews and Jenny, Brianna, Cody and Wes made up the afternoon crew. They proved that the fixes the morning crew devised for the new problems worked. Of course they came up with a set of challenges they all will have to overcome tonight. But again, the bottom line is they did it.

We had a morning guest with us as well as an afternoon guest. The President of Palau has put this Corsair site off limits to the general population. Without this sort of protection, many of the pieces and parts of this airplane would likely go missing. But that means that now BentProp, Neco Marine and everyone else must get permission to dive here, and one stipulation right now is that an official from the Bureau of Arts and Culture (BAC) must accompany the dive boat. In the morning, we had a non-diver with us: Errol Flynn. Really - I'm not making this up. In the afternoon, Suzanne Finney joined us and since she is a diver and an archeologist, she took the opportunity to start an official survey of the crashed airplane. She also bet me a beer (umbrella drink for her) that the U.S. east coast time zone was two hours off from Palau (two hours plus 12 of course). I knew it was one and so my victory was oh, so sweet. She promptly paid after the dive day so she has the official good-egg seal now.

Suzanne surveys the Corsair, while the bot surveys Suzanne.

Our routine is to brief first thing in the morning, and debrief at the end of the day, after the ROV is put to bed. We had great discussions with all of the team members and they are ready for tomorrow. We're going to do one more practice day of driving the bot and doing search patterns. We'll take them to The Jake, a well known dive spot and show them what an unprotected airplane looks like after it's been looted.

We parted company with the ROV team as we had a dinner date with Senator Chin, and old BentProp friend. Of course like a bad penny, those kids keep turning up. I think they're stalking us.

Scott, Cody and Wes with Senator Elias Camsek Chin.
Senator Chin has been a great supporter of BentProp for several years.
He's a former Palauan Vice President and retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel.

And that brings you up to speed for the day. It was exciting to see this come together. To watch the team grow. To see them overcome obstacles. It's victory. Well, not like winning a beer. But pretty darned close!

- Flip Colmer

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