Creep into the Deep™
                                              Virtual Research Mission to the Deep-Sea
 

Deep Sea Explorer Bios:  

        Subpilots, Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory
                                                                                                                                             

 

 Photos used with permission of HURL.

All Rights Reserved

Hey Virtual Team Members,

Many of you have asked about who drives the sub. That, of course, is a subpilot. Dr. John Smith was nice enough to share a bit about the HURL pilots.  (Dr. Smith is also a certified ROV pilot...pretty cool!) Here is a bit of information on a cool job that you might not have thought about before. To be a subpilot, you need to be part explorer, part engineer, part navigator, and a big part daring! 

Here's what Dr. Smith shared...

 


 

 

 

Max Cremer is one of the *qualified pilot and Deputy Ops director.  We have two guys in training or PITs (Pilots in Training), Colin and Steve.  They all have other duties like general maintenance of the vehicles, electronic tech, welder, diver, etc and all assist with launch, tracking, and recovery.  Doug is a former Navy welder and does general maintenance.  Dan is our Chief  Engineer and helps Pete with the ROV piloting and maintenance.  Many of the guys are former Navy submariners or Coast Guard.  Max actually has a M.S. in Oceanography so he makes sure the scientific instruments that go on the subs are calibrated and so on.  There is no real sub driving school, though the Navy has simulators for the big (military) subs.  It's on the job training and it takes a long time to get your wings, dolphins, fins...uh...whatever you'd call them!

(*Subpilots are trained and must  qualify in order to pilot a sub. What do you suppose they need to learn?)  

Terry Kerby is the Operations Director, Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab. You can read about him at: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02hawaii/background/bios/bios.html#kerby

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