NAVY CAPABILITIES 



29 



Four-man Personnel Transfer Chamber (PTC). The PTC, an elevator-like diving 

 station for divers working on the bottom, provides transportation from the ocean sur- 

 face to ocean bottom. Its artificial atmosphere is pressurized equal to the pressure 

 of the depth of the ocean environment at which the divers are working. When 

 closed the lower hatch shown in this artist's concept allows the divers to descend in 

 the PTC at normal pressure for exploratory dives. A hatch at the top of the access 

 trunk, not shown provides a means of locking divers in at ambient sea pressure while 

 transferring to the surface deck decompression chamber for mating. 



OPERATIONAL SALVAGE AND TOOLS 



To fulfill operational requirements for ship salvage, the Navy has leased 

 an advanced diving system that can provide a saturated diving capability to 

 aU fleet salvage ships. The highly portable features of the system enable it 

 to be airlifted to any place in the world and quickly installed on a Navy 

 salvage ship of opportunity. 



In August 1966 a deep-dive demonstration using this system was con- 

 ducted to 450 ft from a fleet tug, over the prospective site of Sealab III, 

 near San Clemente Island, CaHfornia. In July 1967, after delivery of the 

 system to the Navy, a series of open sea training dives to 300 ft were suc- 

 cessfully accomplished from a salvage repair ship near Hawaii. Now con- 

 sidered fully operational, this system, called Advanced Diving System IV 



