Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 31

FORT LAUDERDALE NEVS AND SUN-SENTINEL. Sunday. June 1. 1969 3C I iif's Official Hurricane Season Opens Today 4 I I 4. 1 I I I I i By BEx FUNK Associated Press Writer MIAMI This could be the year when man makes his first major assault on a hurricane a daring, hopeful effort to drain some of the man killing energy from the terror of the tropics.

The hurricane season opens today but weather patterns indicate a long wait for the first big blow to come howling across tropic seas. "The Atlantic Ocean Is completely covered with anticyclone conditions," said Arnold Sugg, deputy director of the Miami Hurricane Center. "We have spotted only three tropical depressions this year. All over the tropics, pressures are normal and holding steady." Conditions this year are directly opposite to those at the start of the 1968 season, when low pressures and a mass of warm, moist air over the western Caribbean spawned two hurricanes and a tropical storm in June. With photographic satellites providing a constant view of the tropics from space, a special hurricane watch begins today and extends through November.

Aiding the Weather Bureau are reconnaissance flyers of the Navy and Air Force and the communications experts of the Federal Aviation Agency. If a hurricane moves into a prescribed area, pilots of Operation Stormfury will hit it with massive barrages of silver iodide crystals to try to tame it. Well Away From Land Dr. Cecil Gentry, Stormfury director, said the planes will not be launched unless the hurricane is well away from land and at the same time within easy aircraft range of the main base at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. "When a hurricane is close to land," Gentry said, "the influence of land on the storm circulation is as great or greater than anything we will be able to do to the hurricane." A psychological factor also rules out any tampering with storms near populated areas.

If a storm were seeded, then roared ashore to cause extensive damage, an angry public might blame the scientists. Forecasters must guarantee that a storm will remain 50 miles from land for 24 hours before the aerial attack is made. This leaves the pilots little opportunity to function in the landlocked Gulf of Mexico, or in the Caribbean Sea with its many islands. This leaves the tropical Atlantic as the best bet, somewhere in a 600-mile range of Roosevelt Roads. The attack will involve five seedings in an eight-hour period.

Then the pilots must remain in the storm for hours collecting data to evaluate the effect on the hurricane. Dr. Robert H. Simpson, director of the Hurricane Center and creator of Stormfury, believes the chances are 50-50 "that we will find something useful can be done to a hurricane." "I think we will downgrade it in a fashion that will not eliminate, but will limit, the damage it does," he said. There'd better not be more than 21 Atlantic hurricanes this year or the Weather Bureau will run out of names.

As it has every year since 1953, the bureau has drawn up an alphabetical list of girl's names for tagging each major ocean storm system as it develops during the June-through-November hurricane season. The 1969 roster, released Saturday, runs from Anna to Wenda. Despite 17 years' experience at this sort of thing, Weather Bureau naming experts were unable to concoct names starting with and U. The official list: Anna, Blanche, Camille, Debbie, Eve, Francelia, Gerda, Holly, Inga, Jenny, Kara, Laurie, Martha, Netty, Orva, Peggy, Rhoda, Sadie, Tanya, Virgy and Wenda. I (AP Wirephoto) DIRECT LOOK AT EYE OF HURRICANE weatherman has a seeding plan i Sub Probe Of Gulf Stream To Get Under Way I smashed and stored in plastic bags.

The submarine is capable of remaining submerged for six weeks, but Piccard admits "we'd be pretty uncomfortable after the fifth week." Since the submarine was built in Piccard's native country Switzerland, it had to be purposefully kept small and compact. It would have been impossible to get a much larger vessel out of the high country, Program Director Walt Muench explained. Bl'ILT BY GRUMMAN As it was parts of the sub had to be dismantled before it could be loaded on a railroad flat cur and transported to Antwerp where it was sent b'' freighter to Palm Beach. Although Piccard designed the Ben Franklin and supervised its construction, the sub was actually built by Grumman Aircraft Engineering the same firm which built the lunar module, which will tie used to set two men down on the moon in July. So far Grumman estimates it has poured about $5 million into the construction of the sub and the Gulf Stream Drift Mission.

The expenditure has been regarded as a long term investment. "We feel that the knowledge and expertise acquired in building the Ben Franklin can be applied to other underwater vessels," said one Grumman official. "The Ben Franklin will give us a preeminent position in ocean engineering." Eventually, Grumman believes the Ben Franklin and other vessels similar to it will be used for salvage operations and underwater prospecting. Thus, one of Piccard's principle tasks in the upcoming venture is to demonstrate that his submarine brainchild can perform smoothly and efficiently. If he can prove that, the Ben Franklin will be a forerunner of other submersi-bles to come.

"The future work in oceanography will be primarily under the sea," Muench said. "Someday we'll be as much home under the sea as we appear to be in space." Muench observed that Grumman has already had a submersible on the drawing board that has a lock-out chamber which would permit men to swim free at depths of 1,000 feet. Eventually, Muench predicts there will be vessels built that will allow men to operate at deeper depths, but this will only happen when man has learned to breathe somewhat like a fish. An experiment at Harvard University has already demonstrated that a man can breathe with one lung filled with water. Besides the testing of the sub itself, Piccard and his crew will also serve as guinea pigs for NASA.

The space agency felt the submarine was an ideal place to observe men living and working under stress In cramped and Isolated environment. The knowledge gained from these observations can hopefully be applied to future manned space stations. By the time the Ben Franklin reaches Boston, its crew will be among the most photographed men in the world. Two i -1 a cameras mounted at opposite ends of the sub will photograph the men every two minutes, or about 43,000 times during the drift. For the Navy, the drift is an excellent opportunity to study the deep scattering layer and record the sounds of marine life both defense oriented.

By ANNE KOLB (Staff Writer) WEST PALM BEACH -Sometime within the week an undersized, steel-skinned submarine will descend deep into the bowels of the Gulfstream for a historic 1500-mile scientific expedition up the eastern seaboard. On board will be Dr. Jacques Piccard, famed oceano-grapher and designer of the midget sub, and five other scientists. For four weeks the six-man crew will attempt to unravel the many mysteries of the Gulf Stream as the sturdy, little sub silently prowls the warm currents. The sub will surface somewhere off Cape Cod in early July then be towed back to its home at the Port of Palm Beach.

For most of the month-long journey Piccard's submersible will operate without motors, drifting silently north a speeds of less than a knot and at depths of 2,000 feet. Since no man has ever traveled so long and so far at such depths, Piccard and his crew are certain to make oceanographic history. FAME IS NOT NEW For the 47-year-old Piccard such fame is nothing new. In the early 50's Piccard collaborated with his father Auguste in designing the bathyscape Trieste a queer looking vessel capable of withstanding the tremendous pressures of the ocean's depths. In 1960 Piccard and U.S.

Navy Lt. Donald Walsh descended 35,800 feet to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. There, in the deepest known spot in the world's oceans, the two men discovered sea life in the form of flat fish, jelly fish, and shrimp. Just what Piccard and his crew will find in the depths of the Gulf Stream no one knows for sure, although there are some good indications. The Navy believes Piccard will be able to monitor and, perhaps, describe in detail the deep scattering layer (DSC) which is believed to be made up of plankton and various fishes.

To aid in this defense-orientated research the Navy has crammed i a 's 50-foot sub-the Franklin" with sophisticated listening devices and other electronic gear. The sub also has 29 portholes through which the crew can view and photograph marine life. 35mm and 70mm cameras are mounted on the outside of the vessel along with strob lights. LIMITED LIGHTS Since both the motors and the lights are battery powered, their use will be limited. Walt Muench, the program director, estimates that the motors will be used no more than two hours a day and only then to make course corrections.

The lights will be timed so that only one is on at all times. While lights are expected to aid the sub's chief pilot, Er-win Aebersold, his principal navigational help will come from a mother ship overhead and from a sonar system that is able to "look ahead" 1,500 yards for obstacles like rocks or shipwrecks. When such an obstacle appears on sonar, Aebersold can make the rear engines respond like a helicopter's rotor blades driving the sub straight up. Besides Piccard and Aebersold. the crew includes Donald J.

Kazimir, an engineer and the sub's skipper; Roswell F. Prepare To Dive! -'Ben Franklin' Goes Out On A Test Bun 11 '-f py I View Out Of Waler The Franklin's Crew I ffl-Jt '1 Busby, a specialist in marine geology who is connected with the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office; Kenneth Haigh, a British oceanographer, author and expert in acoustics; and Chester B. May, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who will study the effects of the long-term isolation on the crew. The liveable space on the Ben Franklin is so small the crew will probably feel like they are working in a crowded closet.

DUMBBELL INTERIOR The interior of the sub is laid out like a dumbbell. There are 10-foot circular working areas in the bow and stern with a three-foot wide passageway connecting them. The rest of the space is eaten up by electronic equipment and other life-support gear. The only amenities for the crew are one table, six folding chairs, and six bunks including one slightly longer for the six-foot, seven-inch Piccard. The sub's head (bathroom) is three and a half feet square and contains a sink the size of a soup dish, a shower hose, and a tiny chemical toilet.

The vessel will carry 300 gallons of cold water and 200 gallons of hot water. The crowding of the crew will be alleviated somewhat by their work schedule which theoretically will keep two men on duty at all times and four men off. Throughout the month-long journey the men will wear special jump-suits treated with a germicide and will eat dehydrated food off plastic dishes. After each meal, the eating utensils will be 1 2L AEBERSOLD KAZIMIR DR. PICCARD r4 Jul 1 -'it --A Mm HAicn BL'SBY Inside -A 3Iaze Of Electronic Gear.