Ocean Gliders Flight Technology• Houston Chronicle Friday, Nov. 28, 2003, page 22A

• Researchers perfecting innovative gliders that can swoop and soar

– Hundreds of miles

– Weeks at a time

– Deep beneath the ocean waves

– Slow but nimble

– Technology less than 10 years old

• Clayton Jones, project engineer, Webb Research Corp., East Falmouth, Mass.– Company sold 21 of them

– $60,000 each

– No propellers, no jets, no flapping wings

– Pump ballast water in and out to change buoyancy

– Rise and fall as they move forward

– Battery powered

– Instrumented by marine scientists• Ocean currents

• Salinity

• Temperature

Ocean Gliders Flight Technology• Hopes for later uses

– Monitor pollution levels– Keep tabs on plankton blooms– Swim with the fish or Russian submarines- Scott Jenkins, Scripps

Institution of Ocenography in San Diego• Interest and backing of US Navy- both efficient and stealthy means potential

military applications– Mine detection– Surveillance– Patrol

• Navy idea in 1960’s lost to propeller-driven submersibles• 1980’s proposal- thrifty flights lasting months and miles at a time• Thomas Swean, team leader for ocean engineering and marine systems at the

Office of Naval Research in Arlington, VA• Same aerodynamic principles as aircraft, except they climb as easily as they

dive• First large field demonstration summer of 2003 deployed 15 in Monterey Bay• AUV- autonomous underwater vehicle

Ocean Gliders Flight Technology• Problems

– Buildup of barnacles on long flights, creating drag– Risks at the surface- Ralf Bachmayer, Princeton University glider

researcher• Kelp• Curious fishermen

– Plucked four that surfaced to communicate– Three were found intact, the fourth on the beach in pieces

• Ships• First generation resembled 6-foot torpedoes with stubby wings• Early stage for now

– Built by Scripps, Webb Research, and University of Washington– Flights measured in weeks and hundreds of miles

• Next generation promise huge gains– Efficiency– Range– Speed

• Air and water are both fluids with different densities- no new principles

Flu drug shortage & pandemic• Fear of flu new strain passed to humans with no immunity (deadlier and

faster), such as now have with birds and pigs• Bird flu H5N1 hit people in Hong Kong in February 2003, 1 family, 1 death• Poultry flu H7N7 hit the Netherlands in March 2003, dozens infected,

veterinarian killed• These dangerous strains have grown dramatically in birds and pigs in the last

12 months– Sparks in a dry forest- no forest fire yet, but lucky (Gellin)– World is nowhere near ready (Webster)

• Current vaccine production too slow for pandemic– Chicken eggs for growing two virus strains, hoping for a hybrid of the two strains to

use in the vaccine– Some flu strains don’t grow well in eggs– Can require 8 months

• Reverse genetics, a genetic modification method, now proposed– Could shave months from process of vaccine production– New technique for growing seed stock for future vaccines– Never been used on flu vaccines– National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working on it for unusual

flu stains, such as the Asian bird flu (Dr. Linda Lambert)