Deep below the Pacific Ocean, dozens of WWII pilots are laying in watery graves, still inside the aircraft took them across the sky decades ago. It’s far to late for a rescue, but as Popular Science explains, the people behind the BentProp Project — and their undersea drones — are surfacing these soldiers’ incredible history.
From Popular Science:
Last year, local spear fishermen diving on Palau’s western barrier reef stumbled across one of the most impressive finds: an intact plane. They alerted the owner of a dive shop, who passed photos of the wreck along to BentProp. Scannon’s team eventually identified the plane as an American Corsair.
When [they] reach the Corsair, engineers lower the [autonomous underwater vehicle], now equipped with GoPro HERO3 HD cameras, into the water, and it once again begins a methodical sweep. Back in California, [the team] will use the thousands of captured images, plus hundreds of photos taken by human divers, to build a 3-D reconstruction of the plane.
BrentProp believes there are at least 8 more US planes hidden in this corner of the ocean, and using their autonomous underwater vehicle called “Remus,” they intend to find the rest. It’s an undersea mission that’s been a long time coming. You can hop over to Popular Science for the all the details of the awesome project. [Popular Science]
Image by Matt Kieffer/Creative Commons