Hi Brian I owned and restored Kittridge’s very first K250 the one that started it all. Kittridge guided me through some of the restoration and advised me on testing it. He was an amazingly smart man. Stay safe! Lenny
I used to work for a salvage operation using a submersible that was basically a Kittredge sub Clone. Great to see this video, brings back good memories.
How absolutely incredible! What an excellent way for a student to safely gain experience, with their instructor overhead and in radio communication and having the ability to raise the craft at their discretion. There are few things more exciting and utterly unique than acting as the Pilot of a Mini Submarine! If I saw that a prospective employee had taken the time to experience Piloting a Mini Submarine I'd be inclined to think that they were a more interesting, inquiring and adventurous person than one usually encounters!
brilliant piece of kit. amazing engineering in the design and features.(I like the music:) I believe (the character)Bond actually piloted a submarine twice, in "The Spy Who Loved me" & "For Your Eyes Only"
Dude, this is frickin' awesome! I'm from Kentucky and we have a lot of lakes, especially artificial ones made by hydroelectric dams. Lake Cumberland and Kentucky Lake are know to even have the remains of ghost towns from before the dams, no telling what I might find there. Once I get the money together, I'm taking that class and buying a sub with robot arms! 🎉🤞🍀👍️
Not very far yet, I am going to do a build series on my youtube channel of it's construction. I have bought the plans and sourced the materials. Built and wired a shop at my house, also built a cradle for the pressure hull. I am pretty close to starting on the hull. Ask anyone who knows me this has been an obsession of mine since I was a kid.
+OmegaMolecule Mark and I have been diving together since the early 70's. He took a piloting class with Kittredge in the late 70's and was hooked. He sold his K250 and bought the one used for classes. I bought the other one for search and recovery. They are docile subs and fun to dive! If you want to dive a 350 contact Mark.
If it's the one in California it's an original VAST sub manufactured by Kittredge, an early version of the K250. It's a rare sub as it wasn't an amateur version built from plans.
Couple questions, What is the cost to build one, How long can it stay down with one person and two people, the prints you can buy how detailed is it? does it come with a list of materials.
Dathan Williamson Go to Psubs.com and poke around. The sub featured on the splash page is a K250, a smaller version of these two. How long you stay down depends on your CO2 scrubber and battery power. It's possible to stay down for hours. As per price to build, there are many variables including how much of the work you can do yourself. They occasionally come up for sale which is also a good way to obtain one. Plans for a K350, like the two in this video, are available on the site. If you subscribe to the email group you'll find all sorts of helpful advice.
"Soft" in that they are a half an inch of fiberglass. Open on the bottom, though some models are semi closed by owners. Google "Persistence K350." The design has been certified A+ by Lloyds of London and works well. The first design was called a Vast and the main tanks were mounted on the interior wall. Designer was a WWII sub captain and that's what he was used to. A Naval Academy engineering grade, he modified later designs with the fore and aft external tanks. All the weight is on the bottom, including the lead batteries. With the main ballast tanks all the way at the top, they are very stable in rolling seas, not likely to tip over.
Brian Hughes what I meant by "soft" was soft vs hard tanks. Where hard tanks have valves at the top and bottom and are most commonly used as trim tanks. Or soft, which are usually used as main ballast tanks.
Alas, probably not. The hot ticket right now are the very high-end subs for sale like those from Triton and buyers mostly have their own crew learn directly from Triton. Many of the tasks that use to be performed by small submersibles have been taken over by ROVs.
