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I remember reading about the prototype for these subs 20 years ago. The idea then was a ceramic hull that could run straight up from the bottom of the Marianas Trench to the surface at full speed, without any need to depressurize.

Deep Flight It seems my memory is a little fuzzy. The prototype was capable of 12 knots and could ascend at 650 ft/min, but was only good to 3300 feet. I do remember they were having trouble finding a sponsor for the full depth model.

So, it's a race then, between Cameron's Deep Sea Challenge and Hawke/Virgin Oceanic's Deep Flight Challenger (which I think is a lot cooler - it "flies" rather than just sinks).

Don't know any dates for either attempt, other than '2012' for Deep Flight's first descent.

Read up on Welsh's Deep Flight Challenger. As TFA says, it makes the 1960 vehicle, the Bathyscaphe Trieste, look like a zeppelin compared to a fighter jet.

The Deep Flight Merlin is positively buoyant and operates as an underwater plane.

Currently, the deepest-rated vehicles are able to descend to 6,500m, allowing scientists access to 95% of the seafloor.

Deep Flight Challenger

Deep Flight Challenger was built to enable adventurer, Steve Fossett, to set the ultimate solo dive record for all time (37,000 feet). Unfortunately Fossett perished in a plane crash before he could dive the submersible to record depth. Hawkes Ocean Technologies is now the only organization in the world that has full ocean depth technology.

Flight endurance: full ocean depth and back in 5 hours
Speed: Cruise 2.2 knots; Max 3 knots
Ascent/Descent Rate:350 feet/second at +/- 45 degrees
Operating Depth: 37,000 fsw
Crew: 1

http://www.deepflight.com/subs/df_challenger.htm

37,000 feet > 6,500m normally. News reporters seldom seem to actually fully understand reality or what they are reporting, is it any wonder that the rest of the news sounds so distorted and that headlines are usually one way hashes?

Well, the "flying" submarine bit has been around for awhile, but adding the air part certainly does add a twist.

Well, if you want a real submersible instead of a 20-seconds-below-snorkle-depth, try DeepFlight: http://www.deepflight.com/

A ultra light helicopters/plane/submarine is possible.

It wouldn't go down very far. maybe a 150 feet or so but that is fifteen stories. Heck divers can free dive that far with out oxygen tanks. Remember a lot of small subs are built out of aircraft grade Aluminium. The big difference is propulsion. pitch, yaw, roll all still work the same in concept. hence http://www.deepflight.com/subs/dfa.htm

Second. The ending of humanity is a given. We are going to die out if we don't leave this planet for other ones. This universal truth has been known for millenea. Whether or not you can accept itis part of just how smart you are. heck it's even in the bible that the world ends. The only two questions are when and How? those can't be answered until the day of. Sorry that's just life.

Right, my point being that the 770HP number the flying car is an exaggeration because the horsepower we think of, 'peak real usable' horsepower, happens in the 2500RPM (pickup trucks) to 12,000RPM (race motorcycles) range. Not to mention the thing has 8 engines.

Then again the thing does have enough power to accelerate in a verticle climb (or else it wouldn't be able to VTOL) so I guess it isn't wimpy by any means. I looked at the pictures and it looks to have all the aerodynamic characteristics of a brick. A very pretty, glossy, metallic red colored brick, but a flying brick nonetheless. My first impressions were that it was originally designed by the same guys drawing them in the 50's and 60's - had all the same looks and lines from a design standpoint (was funny to see that I was right.)

If this guy thinks he can make these for $500k apiece, he needs to look at the Inventor sponsored Aviator here and here This thing is a one-off first run that costs a little more than a million dollars (parts, labor, design engineers) but I think would be a LOT cheaper in mass production and have a much wider appeal. A flying car sounds cool, but the penalty for losing control of a personal submarine is rarely more than your own demise (so the government restrictions would be much less stringent, and he could be quicker to market.) Given what boats cost today I think he could competitively mass market these or ones a little larger into that market. Given the $200M he has wrapped up into his flying cars, he could have built these things instead and created an underwater city where people could use them to good effect.

Time to fly rings round the old school stink boat Deep Flight

Nice project. I'd like to see more of the Deep Flight type submersibles though, rather than these ballast-based beasts.

While $15,000 is indeed the cost to get trained, don't confuse the design cost with the incremental cost to build sub n+1. That's not necessarily $1M.

-- Skip