Dave Sutton

Uhhh...... no, actually we're talking about a Learjet... . if it were a *Falcon* I'd agree.... (only kidding, I flew Lears for years and still fly an old 23 for a friend now and then.)

Seriously, aerospace components are rarely selected for cost, they are selected for benefit. The sphere is located in the unpressurized nose cone area, wedged in under the RADAR antenna and squeezed in between a myriad of other hydraulic and pneumaic components. The spherical shape is for form-factor. Why inconel? Corrosion resistance would be my guess.... that area can get wet (tire water being slung off during takeoff and landing). As far as temperature, it gets cold soaked to as low as -50 at FL510 (!), the certified ceiling of the Lear 25 (what I saw the sphere installled on).


OK, so to segue into the Mark-15/CCR-1000/Aerospace/NASA/TAVCO sphere connections...


Mark-15/CCR-1000 trivia: Little known (unknown) information?

The CCR-1000 was not originally designed only for diving, but was originally fabricated (at least in a quantity of two) as a small life support system for dry environment survival for the Johnson Sea-Link submersible. This is not based on speculation, it's based on my PERSONAL observations at Harbor Branch, as well as some hardware that's in my collection (see below). Sadly, the system was tried in anger, and it failed due to cold soaked scrubbers that did not work after the vehicle was trapped on the bottom in a well known accident in 1973. Ed Link's son was lost in the accident, described in a short version here:

"A tragic accident near Key West, Florida in 1973 took the lives of E C Link and A Stover. The men, along with scientists A Menzies and R Meek who survived, where aboard the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible when it became trapped in the wreckage of a scuttled destroyer 360 ft underwater. An anti-snag framework had been added to the submersible and apparently this became clipped into a snap hook on a fishing net snagged in the shipwreck. Strong currents thwarted efforts of divers in freeing the sub. The water temperature was 40F and this contributed to the accident by impeding the action of Baralyme in absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. The divers were in a separate, colder compartment from the scientists and although they added fresh oxygen the two men eventually lost conciousness and died of carbon dioxide poisoning."

See also:

Entanglement of the Submersible Johnson Sea Link with Submerged Wreckage off Key West, Florida on or About 17 June 1973 with Loss of Life.


And Google "Johnson Sea-Link Accident".

In any case: I am completely convinced that the CCR-1000 as an *underwater* system was a spin-off from a very similar design used in the JSL submersible as a dry survival system. Here's the evidence: I have a set of parkerized spheres here from Tavco from the *exact* system installed in the JSL (as well as the center section of that system) that have smaller than standard threads, are marked "Receiver, Hydraulic", and which came from CCR-1000 scrubber and pneumatics system that was *dry mounted* on the bulkhead of the Johnson Sea Link II sub (in the diver lockout chamber) for use as a dry habitat survival life support system sometime in 1969 (based on the date on the sticker on the spheres). The sphere valves have gauges tapped into where the blowout discs would be, the gauges are dry-gauges (not suitable for underwater use), and the center section, although being a CCR-1000 "similar" one has totally different hose connections and is set so that the hose connections stick out at a 90 degree angle so that the hoses would work when the center section was hard mounted on the bulkhead of the submarine. This is *definately* the oldest piece of CCR-1000 hardware that I have ever seen (1969 at latest). The scrubber is hand-made, you can see that it was filed to fit, and it is obviously not a production item (but is *absolutely* a CCR-1000 scrubber). The system was installed in the JSL *prior to the accident described above*, as it is THE EXACT HARDWARE from the SAME SYSTEM that failed due to cold soaked scrubbers and resulted in the death of the two divers in the lockout system. I obtained the hardware from Dr. Dave Youngblood (who co-authored the in water recompression paper with Rich Pyle that we reference continuously), and he obtained it after the accident investigation was concluded (he was a party to the investigation as a hyperbaric physician). The hardware ended up in the hands of Phil Nyutten, and he sent it to Dave Youngblood out of his shed of crap about 8 years ago when I asked Dave to try to get me some Mark-15 stuff from Phil's junk piles. There is *zero* doubt as to the provinence of the hardware: It's right out of the JSL submersible.

The following is *pure speculation*, but it makes sense: We KNOW that a CCR-1000 "look alike" was installed in the JSL around 1969. I speculate that the *diving* CCR-1000 was a spin-off of this, not the other way around. Here's why I think that: First, the oldest known CCR-1000 "type" hardware that I have ever seen is the stuff I describe above. Second, the JSL submersibles contain other spheres for gas supplies, in varying sizes. Most seem to have come from NASA supplies up at Cape Canaveral, which is only about 40 miles north of where the JSL's were constructed *at about the same time frame*. The two *oldest* CCR-1000's (diving version) that I ever saw were the two that we played with in 1978 or 79 (need to look at my logs) at Harbor Branch as students at Florida Institute of Technology (Underwater Technology Program). These were *definately* prototype CCR-1000's. Tim Askew, then the Chief Diver at Harbor Branch, told us that they were "Designed specially for the JSL Program" and that these were "One of a kind hardware that we had designed for the subs". At that time, there were 4 CCR-1000s in use at Harbor Branch for diver lockout, two for each sub, and the emergency scrubber systems had already been removed after the accident.

Here's my speculation: The CCR-1000 was built up as a dual-purpose system for wet/dry use, driven by the needs of Harbor Branch. The selection of spheres was driven by their earlier use aboard the JSL's, which were built by a group of guys that overlapped between NASA and Harbor Branch. At the very least the two systems were built "in parallel". If anyone can date a "diving" CCR-1000 to prior to 1969, let me know. Otherwise the baseline so far is "1969" and "Dry Hyperbaric Life Support System" as the earliest CCR-1000 based on *hardware in hand* as opposed to "stories to tell". I'd love to talk to Mike Iswalt about this, if anyone can locate him for me.

Just a last tie-in: Jim Woodberry, the Diving Officer for the Underwater Technology Program at the Florida Institute of Technology when I was a student there, was a prior NASA cryogenics engineer, who had earlier developed the Mako Cryogenic SCUBA that was marketed by Jordan Klein (google him too). The NASA / JSL / Aerospace / Florida Cape Canaveral community / CCR-1000 "networking" link is an interesting one, and if anyone ever does a real history of the CCR-1000, I bet that they would find this to be a key to the history.

I'll shoot photos of the stuff if anyone wants to see it.


But, bottom line: The spheres were off the shelf *aerospace* parts taken underwater, not the other way 'round. No surprise that it's in a Learjet dating from the 1960's.


Dave