Have you heard of the FLIP? It’s the U.S. Navy’s Floating Instrument Platform and as its name indicates, it can actually flip. It performs 90-degree flips in order to monitor hard-to-detect systems in the open ocean without rocking around in the waves. In that sense, it’s actually a floating research platform. Having been built in 1962, it was originally planned to study acoustic propagation for submarine warfare. Since then, however, it’s expanded its reach to support research in various fields such as geophysics, meteorology, and oceanography. What tools is FLIP equipped with that make it such a proficient research lab? How many crew members can the platform handle? How long can they each stay without resupplying? What is the science, technology, and engineering behind the fact that this platform does not sink?
