Richard Branson’s New Underwater Plane April 19, 2010 by lukesheppard

Entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson let his extravagant side show again recently as he revealed his new boys toy, the “Necker Nymph,” a aero submarine which is one of a kind. Billionaire, Richard Branson already owns a record label, a airline, a mobile phone company, space travel, a Caribbean island and numerous luxurious restaurants and has now added another frontier to his portfolio, the sea.

The aero submarine has been built like a flighter plane and uses the same principles of the flight through air, underwater. The 3-seater Necker Nymph runs on battery and it’s so quiet, it just glides through the water with low light and low noise pollution as not to disturb the fragile ecosystems that lie there. The open-air cockpit of the Necker Nymph means that the passengers need to use scuba gear that is stored in the craft to allow them to dive up to 130ft in depth. This one of a kind submersible costs approximately £415,000 and Branson has high aspirations to eventually create a plane that can entertain depths of 35,000ft. The Necker Nymph has been designed by Hawkes Ocean Technologies and is the first ever underwater plane to ever be designed – it is a completely new class of vehicle. This is a new and exciting way to glide around reefs and explore dive sites without having to do any of the legwork, he described this new experience as simply “brilliant”. Sir Richard Branson hopes to discover new shipwrecks because the Necker can cover more ground than that of a scuba diver. If you wanted to rent the Necker Nymph for a week from Sir Branson, you can expect to pay a pricey $25,00 for the unique experience.