Graham Hawkes (born 23 December 1947)Times-News, "Graham Hawkes Is Racing To Ocean's Bottom", ''5 September 1993'', NYT Regional Newspapers is a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-born

marine engineer Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circl ...

and submarine

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Hawkes designed 70% of the manned submersibles produced in those two decades.SF Weekly
"36,000 Feet Under the Sea"
Lisa Davis, ''10 June 1998'' (accessed 12 September 2010) As late as 2007, he held the world solo dive record of ANSYS Advantage, "Taking Next-Generation Submersibles to New Depths", A. Wright, Volume 1, Issue 1, ''2007'

(accessed 12 September 2010) in the submarine Deep Rover. Hawkes invented the first robotic machine gun, the ''Telepresent Rapid Aiming Platform'' (TRAP), the first weapon he designed. He had been inspired to create a safer way for police to deal with situations after watching a

shootout A shootout, also called a firefight or gunfight, is a fight between armed combatants using firearms. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used to describe those that do not involve military forces or only invo ...

in North Hollywood, Los Angeles on television.

Career

In 1976, in association with OSEL of Great Yarmouth, Hawkes designed the one-atmosphere deep diving suit

Wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

. Marine Technology Society Journal, "The Coevolution of Undersea Vehicles and Deep-Sea Research", Bruce H. Robison, Volume 33, Number 4, 1999-2000, pp. 65–73 , Two years later, he designed the one-man microsubmersible

Mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

, which included remote manipulator arms. A Mantis sub was used in the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

film " For Your Eyes Only", which he himself piloted in a large tank at the Pinewood Studios File:WASP_at_the_OSEL_Testing_tank_Gt_Yarmouth,_UK.JPG File:Mantis_at_the_OSEL_Testing_tank_Gt_Yarmouth,_UK.jpg Hawkes founded the

San Leandro San Leandro (Spanish for " St. Leander") is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area; between Oakland to the northwest, and Ashland, Castro Valley, and Hayward to the sout ...

based firm, Deep Ocean Engineering (DOE), in 1981 with Sylvia Earle, his wife from 1986 to 1992. DOE has produced over 300 ROVs. By 1982, he had completed the ''Challenger'' submersible, capable of diving . In 1981, he designed the first of the Deep Rover-series of 1- and 2-man submersibles. A Deep Rover submarine was used in the 3-D IMAX film "

Aliens of the Deep ''Aliens of the Deep'' is a 2005 American documentary film directed in part by James Cameron alongside fellow cameraman and friend Steven Quale, and filmed in the IMAX 3D format. It was produced by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures. Came ...

". In the same year,Milwaukee Journal, "Deep Rover May Be Your Undersea Car", Associated Press, ''10 August 1983'' Hawkes founded Deep Ocean Technology (DOT) with Earle.Yeh, Jennifer. "Earle, Sylvia." Water:Science and Issues. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (12 September 2010). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3409400101.htmlWater Encyclopedia
"Earle, Sylvia"
Jennifer Yeh (accessed 12 September 2010)Spartanburg Herald-Journal, "Diver, Engineer Join Forces To Study Ocean", Associated Press, ''10 January 1982'' In 1985, the Deep Ocean Engineering team designed and built the ''Deep Rover'' research submarine, which operates down to . An insight into his personality was provided by a scene that occurred during the sea trials of the first ''Deep Rover'' vehicle. Operating near San Nicholas Island, California, from a converted mudboat the R/V Egabrag, the sub had been launched after dark with Hawkes as pilot. He had the descent depth every 100 metres, down to 1000 metres on the

Underwater telephone Underwater acoustic communication is a technique of sending and receiving messages below water. There are several ways of employing such communication but the most common is by using hydrophones. Underwater communication is difficult due to factor ...

(UQC). Amongst the people on the bridge of the R/V Egabrag, where the UQC was installed were the Captain and helmsman, his then wife Sylvia Earle, a reporter, cameraman and sound man from a San Francisco TV station, the Operations Manager from CANDIVE and the

Diving Safety Officer Diving safety officer (DSO) is the title held by the person who administers a United States university's research diving safety program. They serve as a member of the institution's diving control board (DCB), and needs broad technical and scienti ...

from the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Isla ...

, Phillip Sharkey. Hawkes reported, "1000 meters." There was a quiet ripple of applause on the bridge, and the reporter took the UQC microphone. He pressed the "push to talk" button and asked Hawkes, "What does it mean to you to be there, at 3000 feet?" The reporter was clearly expecting the flowery prose that Sylvia Earle was so justly famous for, but all he got from Hawkes was "It means my calculations were correct." This exploit, in 1985, set the world solo dive depth record in a submarine. (3000 ft/1000m off San Clemente Island on Deep Rover), which was soon repeated by Sylvia Earle, and another team member. In 1991, he made headlines when it was briefly thought that he and his team might have found the remains of 'Flight 19', missing in the Bermuda Triangle since 1945. Hawkes left the day-to-day operations of Deep Ocean Engineering to found Hawkes Ocean Technologies (HOT) in 1996.New York Daily News
"Richard Branson's latest toy? An underwater plane called 'Necker Nymph'"
Catey Hill, ''1 February 2010'' (accessed 12 September 2010) HOT launched the

Necker Nymph The ''Necker Nymph'' is a submersible vehicle operated by Virgin Aquatic from the 32-metre yacht ''Necker Belle'', which is based at the Virgin Limited Edition resort Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. The ''Necker Nymph'' is the i ...

and DeepFlight Super Falcon which Hawkes designed.The Australian
"Aussies help director dive to bottom of deepest ocean for Avatar 2"
John Harlow, ''13 September 2010'' (accessed 12 September 2010) Hawkes completed the design for the Deep Flight II two-person submarine in 1998. In 2000, he completed the DeepFlight Aviator, the first positively buoyant submersible that relies on hydrodynamic forces on its wings for diving. It was also the first research submersible to attain a speed of 10 mph underwater. The first example of the type is called ''Spirit of Patrick''. In 2008, Hawkes finished the first example of his design DeepFlight Super Falcon, which he subsequently delivered to venture capitalist Tom Perkins. In 2010, the first example of his

DeepFlight Merlin DeepFlight Merlin is a personal submarine by Hawkes Ocean Technologies, part of the DeepFlight line of submersibles. The positively buoyantDesign World"DeepFlight Merlin 3-person Aero Submarine" 18 February 2010 (accessed 31 July 2010) submersib ...

design was completed and delivered to Richard Branson. It was named the

and is a

wet sub A wet sub is a type of underwater vehicle, either a submarine or a submersible, that does not provide a dry environment for its occupants. It is also described as an underwater vehicle where occupants are exposed to ambient environment during oper ...

marine that is positively buoyant and utilizes hydrodynamic forces to dive.Luxist
"Branson Debuts New Submarine"
Deidre Woollard, ''30 January 2010'' (accessed 12 September 2010)

Bibliography

* Cambridge University Press, "Handbook of Phycological Methods", Mark M. Littler, Diane S. Littler, ed.s, ''1985'',

Filmography

References

External links

DeepFlight: Graham Hawkes, Founder and Chief Technology Officer
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkes, Graham 1947 births Living people Engineers from London British naval architects Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area British marine engineers