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BOOKS PUBLISHED:
 INTRODUCTION
After twenty-five years of development she was finally putting to sea. 'The world's most advanced nuclear submarine'. Bill Floyd started designing the magnetic flux propulsion system, “MFP”, as a physics undergraduate in college. The major problem he encountered then was the power loss in normal conductor systems. In grad school, he worked on a modulated pulse generator, which he nicknamed “the cannon”.
Bill then did a tour of duty in the Navy, learning the design and hands-on operation of a nuclear submarine. After eight years in the service, he obtained a job at the Marshall Research Center in Tennessee and perfected his “cannon” for the Army. His dream propulsion system, however, was still too expensive because it needed cryogenic superconductors to make the system operational. Luckily, another research group at the facility made a startling discovery-a superconductor that operated at a mere forty degrees Fahrenheit. This meant his MFP system could operate aboard a submarine. With his power problem solved, he formed a group to collaborate on the design of a submarine.
His supervisors did not believe the system would really work, so the group received meager funding. Although Bill was in charge of the entire group, he was mainly concerned with getting the cannon to work underwater and the final design for the propulsion system. Once the correct modulation and wavelength for penetrating water was found for the cannon, it was a snap to fit into a submarine. With his design completed and a working model built, he submitted the design to the Navy. After another year of design modification and battling for money, construction finally started. Two years later it was completed - the USS Hunley, SSNE 001. Roughly two-thirds the size of the aging Los Angles class attack submarines, the new armaments and fire control system made the Hunley more lethal. Its propulsion system and hull design made it virtually undetectable. And since this was her maiden voyage, the Navy allowed Bill to ride along to observe her performance first hand.
The familiar cigar shape of past submarines was now replaced by a flattened contour. Inside, it still maintained the familiar, three-deck layout forward of the reactor compartment, with the torpedo room amid-ship and tubes in both sides. The boat had a flat top and bottom and bulging sides. From the reactor to the stern, the top and bottom sloped toward each other, which reduced the internal compartments from three decks to two and eventually one. Once the internal compartment, or as submariners call it 'the people tank,' reached a height of five feet it ended. From there the hull contained storage tanks for essential lubrication and fuel oils.
As she departed from a submarine base along the northeast coast of the United States, all that was visible was the sail, a mere five feet above the water. The bulk of her two-hundred foot hull was five feet below the calm surface of the water. Any satellite, if any were still deployed, would mistake her for a small fishing boat.
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