Technical Scuba Diving
The author revisits the PBM Mariner wreck off Point Loma to improve a previous photogrammetry model, dealing with minor equipment issues and poor surface conditions during the dive. The new model features enhanced color and detail, providing a more accurate visual document of the historically significant wreck for an upcoming book.
Photogrammetry model of a deep TBM Avenger that crashed in 1952. Bureau Number is 53439.
Introduction I've always loved the F-4 Phantom. There is a well-known F-4 Phantom wreck in the Torrey Pines area of San Diego (actually, very close the P-38) that is about 150 feet deep. I've dove it a couple times and it is usually dark and limited visibility. For my upcoming book, I had gone further [...]
Intro Tyler and I had been planning a trip to the Coronado Island with Lora at Marissa Charters for a very long time. It was deferred at least 2-3 times due to weather, unplanned trips, etc. We finally got down there in early February 2026. Tyler had a friend who had seen an airplane wreck [...]
In 2022, a P-38 wreck was discovered off Solana Beach, leading to initial photogrammetry modeling. As skills improved, a recent dive on January 22 aimed to enhance the quality of the model for the book "Aviation Wrecks of Southern California." Despite complications, a clearer, more accurate representation was successfully created.
Introduction If you have been following along, we have been trying to find the S-3 Viking that crashed off Point Loma in 1978. A brief rundown of previous posts: Original AUV Search Second AUV Search First Day of Dives - Mystery Plane First Day of Dives - Wing Section Second Day of Dives Third Day [...]
Introduction Sometimes readers only see the big successes and don't realize that we do a fair number of dives that don't result in finding a new airplane. We have been diving targets in search for the Ables S-3 Viking for quite some time. We recently conducted some additional Iver3 AUV scanning with UCSD on board [...]
Background NB: This post was written a while ago and we have made more progress so I wanted to get this published before I publish some additional updates. 🙂 We have been searching for a S-3 Viking for years and recently conducted two days of searching with UCSD/Scripps using their Iver3 AUV and then did [...]
As part of our search to find the Ables' Viking, we had a bunch of targets to dive (shown in the diagram below). On previous dives, we had identified a Wing Section (green pin in the diagram) that might be from the S-3 Viking and a debris field of a WW II Airplane (one of [...]
Introduction As part of our project to find the Ables Viking, we did some AUV scanning with UCSD/Scripps and one of the targets identified was what looked to be a debris field. A diagram of the possible targets is shown below. The initial search grid was about 1 square kilometer and was based on a [...]
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