Sea Shadow (IX-529)
Encyclopedia : S : SE : SEA : Sea Shadow (IX-529)
| |
| Career | 
|
|---|---|
| Ordered: | 22 October 1982 |
| Delivered: | 1 March 1985 |
| Commissioned: | |
| Decommissioned: | |
| Fate: | Active in service as of 2006. |
| Struck: | |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 563 tons / 572 tonnes |
| Length: | 164 ft / 50 m |
| Beam: | 68 ft / 21 m |
| Draft: | 15 ft / 4.6 m |
| Propulsion: | Diesel electric |
| Speed: | 10 knots / 12 mph / 19 km/h |
| Range: | |
| Depth: | |
| Complement: | |
| Armament: | |
Development
Sea Shadow was built in 1985 to examine the application of stealth technology on naval vessels. In addition, the ship would test the ability to man a ship with fewer men and using more automation. The ship was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Navy and Lockheed. Sea Shadow was developed at Lockheed's Redwood City, California facility, inside the Hughes Mining Barge, which functioned as a floating drydock during construction and testing.Overview
Sea Shadow has a SWATH hull design. Below the water are submerged twin hulls, each with a propeller, aft stabilizer, and inboard forward canard. The portion of the ship above water is connected to the hulls via the two angled struts. The SWATH design helps the ship remain stable even in very rough water of up to sea state 6 (wave height of 18 feet (5.5 m) or "very rough" sea).The T-AGOS 19-and-23-class oceanographic ships have inherited the stabilizer and canard method to help perform their stability-sensitive surveillance missions.
Sea Shadow has only 12 bunks aboard, one small microwave oven, a refrigerator and table. It was never intended to be mission capable and was never commissioned, although she is listed in the Naval Vessel Register.
Sea Shadow was revealed to the public in 1994, and is currently housed at the San Diego Naval Station.
In miniature
Revell produce a plastic model kit of the vessel in 1/144 scale.
In fiction
- The villain's ship in the movie Tomorrow Never Dies was based on Sea Shadow.
See also
- Sea Fighter
- La Fayette class frigate
- Visby class corvette
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.