Flying a Falcon ROV by helicopter to be dropped down a moon pool for an urgent inspection, offshore Western Australia, is just one of the big demands made of the smallest ROV in Saab Seaeye’s range by Australian subsea operator Dive Works. Soon to take delivery of their third Falcon, Dive Works’ managing director Andrew Ford, believes in exploiting the capability of the compact Falcon to its fullest.
Previously, to fit a monitor into a well-head delivery line needed a work-class manipulator with muscular outreach power to engage and key-turn the unit. Dive Works’ idea is to use the Falcon’s thruster power for a task that needs 12 kilos of down force. Simply by designing and fitting a fish-head key-lock to the underside of the ROV, straight below the central thruster, the ROV is maneuvered over the fish-head using the idea of a slave camera fitted inside the key itself. Once in position the ROV pushes down, then the whole vehicle rotated 90 degrees to lock the monitor in place. The procedure is reversed for recovery.
“We’ve proved time and again, that if you think outside the box you can discover new ways to extend the capability of this versatile ROV,” says Ford who has been using Falcons since 2005. “Most people just don’t think creatively about tooling.”
The core Falcon has lights, camera and video options as standard including solid-state gyro, compass, depth sensor and a 450m umbilical. The deep rated 1000m version has built-in fiber optics for high volume data transmission over its long umbilical, and the ability to use broadcast quality video cameras. It also has tilting variable intensity lights linked to a camera tilt mechanism for superior illumination when filming above or below the vehicle.