Rime of the Modern Mariner

Here is the problem. You’re on a ship that can’t get much closer to the iceberg than, oh, say 100 meters. This is because icebergs have nasty habits. The bulk of an iceberg lies beneath the waves — hence “the tip of the iceberg.” You think you’re far away from the thing when, in fact, it’s lurking inches from your hull, invisible. The iceberg itself is rigged like a bomb on a timer, its underside melting faster than its frozen top until finally, without warning, its center of gravity shifts and the ocean around it implodes in sucking vortices. At best, huge chunks break off without warning, swamping and wrecking whatever lies in the way.

You’d like to hover over this iceberg like a fussy mother and get a really good photograph of it. You’d like to track it the way biologists track bears or birds, to see where it’s going over time. But it’s not like you can shoot it with an anesthetic dart, sneak up while it’s sleeping and clamp a radio transmitter on its ear. You simply can’t get near it without taking the kinds of risks no one in their right mind would consider. You suggest a helicopter, but a 30-day rental and a pilot to go with it would cost a cool half-million dollars, and the NSF nixes it. “You’re a resourceful bunch,” they say. “Find another way to do it.”

Enter the engineers, the unsung heroes and heroines of science, without whom nothing works. Meet Alana Sherman, Jake Ellena, Rob Sherlock, Brett Hobson, Kim Reisenbichler, Paul McGill, and Steve Etchemendy (my aforementioned bro-in-law) of MBARI. After discarding the giant slingshot idea and the potato gun idea, here’s the solution they came up with — a heavily customized radio-controlled airplane. Guys (and girls) will be guys.

Watch the YouTube video below, or to see it on a larger screen download the WMV file (3.5 megs, and you’ll need Microsoft Media Player). This is just a test run, of course. We won’t know if the plane will perform as hoped till we get to the Weddell Sea.

Technical details for those of us who love such things:

• The plane is a Sig Giant Kadet Senior ARF with a wingspan of about 80″.
• The engine is an O.S. 91FX, 2-cycle. It uses nitro-methane fuel, producing 2.8 bhp @ 1500 rpm (this is over twice the recommended power for this airplane, so the engine mount surface had to be reinforced)
• The controller is a 7-channel 2.4 GHz Futaba.
• The plane is fitted with a Dragon Onscreen Display (OSD). It has dual microprocessors, temperature sensors, GPS integration, home direction arrow and distance to home readings, and autopilot capabilities. This amazing setup was donated by Intelligent Flight of Perth, Australia.
• The flight camera is an Intelligent Flight CCD.
• The iceberg marker release (or “bomb’s away” mechanism, if you will) was designed and built from scratch at MBARI.
• The payload weighs 2-1/2# total. (This includes GPS navigation equipment, video camera, iceberg marker consisting of a GPS receiver with an Iridium satellite transmitter, and a Nerf football to cushion the marker’s fall. That’s right. A Nerf football.) Even with this payload, the plane is able to go straight up 75 feet at full throttle.
• Imagine how cold the pilot’s hands will get on the little knobs and levers of the controller. The folks at Radiowarm of West Sussex, England, who have very fine imaginations indeed, sent us a Radiowarm “muffin” to protect the controller and the pilot’s hands from the elements!

As you can see from the video, it takes some space to land this plane. At the meetings in February, one of the topics was how to land the plane on the icebreaker’s deck without losing it. To the best of my knowledge, the plan is to put up a large net to serve as a gentle backstop. We’ll have a lot of spare parts, and there are two planes, in case one gets broken beyond repair. Last, we must pray for good weather. Even with the oversized engine, a wind of 15 mph would be hard to overcome.

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