#91
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#92
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Good luck to your son on securing an appointment. I’m a USNA grad, retired with 21 years of service as a Naval Aviator. I have a very Navy family ... 2 of my brothers and a sister are USNA grads also. Sounds like you have things well in hand, but if I can be of any help please contact me.
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#93
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Good luck to your son!
Buddy of mine was SSN-653. Twenty knots! Quote:
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#94
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I was a Mustang, E-1 to E-8 as a nuke submarine electrician and then O-1E to O-4 as a nuke LDO. SSBN728, SSN671, SSBN626, SSN683, CVN69, CVN71, CVN68, and AS39. I visited the Academy once. Little did I know the first ship of my 27 year career would be the newest. |
#95
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Since you were a 'Nuke', did you get to have the 'Rickover' experience? Good luck to him, with 2 nominations, I think he has a very good chance. Ahh, the MXL...4 inches of snow on the ground and about 10 degrees right now..dark, cold..don't like this time of year..I call Nov-Feb the 'black months'...
__________________
Chisholm's Custom Wheels Qui Si Parla Campagnolo |
#96
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I think my son has a good chance, the Congressional nomination kind of took some pressure off him. The Presidential nomination was just because I was retired, the Congressional was earned by him and he did it by doing leadership programs, writing essays, and giving speeches to VFW and American Legion. He also got support from a retired USMC General, Paul Van Riper who achieved fame in 2002 by sinking the US Fleet in an exercise where he was the leader of country Orange (Iran). |
#97
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Bill makes an important point above when he mentions the importance of watchstanders being in an environment and trained to speak up if something doesn't seem right. This is called situational awareness. The maritime industry long ago adopted Bridge Resource Management concepts from the aviation industry, who called it Cockpit Resource Management. All merchant officers (worldwide) are required to complete a a BRM course every five years. While the two major incidents involving collisions between Naval ships and merchant vessels were quite different, they appear to share a common thread of lack of situational awareness. We really don't know a lot about what happened with the Fitzgerald yet,a s the actions of the merhcant vessel have not yet been released (they'll be covered in the report being prepared by the USCG for the NAVY), but we know for sure what happened ont he McCain, and it isn't pretty. The McCain slowed down and turned in front of a merchant ship (a relatively small tanker named the Alnic MC). The series of events leading up to the collision would be funny if not for the loss of life. In a nut shell, the bridge crew tried to shift the steering from one location to another, didn't know what they were doing, and then tried to slow down, but only slowed one engine, thus turning the vessel into the path of the tanker. What boggles the mind, is that nobody bothered to actually look at the shaft tachometers, and nobody seemed to have a good handle on what should be pretty simple mechanics of shifting helm positions. The entrance to the Straits of Singapore is busy, but it is not a particularly challenging situation, as you aren't encountering significant crossing traffic. What the NAVY has not addressed, and what I feel is most important, is that they have no "ship driver" track. Somehow, amongst all their other duties, and relatively few months at sea under way, naval officers are supposed to magically gain the same competence that it takes years at sea, standing two watches every day, that merchant officers get. The British Navy requires all of their officers to become fully STCW certified. STCW refers to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. In the USN, there is little int he way of actual watchkeeping training, and amazing number of people on the bridge that apparently (at least anecdotally) cause more confusion than help. Additionally, they rely on info. from the CIC, whose personnel don't have the same situational awareness since they can't look out the window. Contrary to popular belief, you can't really tell a mega container ship from a bunker barge with a radar. The shear number of merchant ships in the world fleet has continued to grow, making our oceans ever more crowded. This has put pressure on the supply of qualified merchant officers, resulting in a lack of uniform quality. In my work, I see mostly tank ships, who, along with passenger ship officers, are generally the best paid, best trained and most professional. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the officers on dry bulk carriers, and (international) container ships (not true with American flag vessels, which are very well operated and have high pay due to the Jones Act), both of which tend to have slim profit margins. Judging by what we know of the Fitzgerald's collision, there can be no doubt that the container vessel shares some of the blame for the collision. The bottom line is that until the USN addresses the training gap, they will continue to have avoidable incidents like the ones we had in 2017. CaptStash.... |
#98
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I've done two watches a day for six months at a time in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. I was one of the core Officer of the Decks responsible for training new officers. I was 4 hours on, 8 hours off, 08-12 and 20-24. I also had a department head job in the engineering plant. I had no formal training or classroom time, I was paired up with a career Surface Warfare Officer who spent 3 months training me about 10 hours a day on the bridge. We had a tactical operations plot that kept track of other ships using radar, but they didn't have windows unless they walked out to the bridge. When I was on watch, they knew to grab binoculars and look to avoid getting embarrassed by me. One watch I asked about a contact on the horizon and was told it was a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm said "COSCO" on the side and wasn't responding to radio coms. |
#99
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I still feel that the best answer to the problem is the simplest. Make deck officer (and engineering officer for that matter) an actual career track. Set it up so that you can continue to be promoted by gaining experience in the wheelhouse, and specializing in, as you called it, "ship driving." CaptStash.... |
#100
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It's not really proving any point because you can't compare the career path of a naval officer to a merchant marine officer. As far as an analysis of the current situation and where the Navy is hopefully heading, Commander Salamander slays it as usual. http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/20...ss-review.html |
#101
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#102
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Thanks for your service!!
__________________
Chisholm's Custom Wheels Qui Si Parla Campagnolo |
#103
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I used to teach nuclear power and I would get assigned to a Commander who was completing their nuclear training before heading to a carrier for their XO tour. All carriers are nuclear and the CO and XO have to be carrier aviators and graduates of nuclear power school. I was a personal instructor so they could complete their training quickly. IME, the fighter pilots (Tomcats, prior Crusaders) had a harder time with the nuclear training. Maybe it was their previous training pipeline. When I was on the TR, the CO flew (Hornets) a few times a week and even flew a strike over Afghanistan in late 2001. |
#104
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My comments were in comparing commercial sailors/pilots to military sailors/pilots. The point being that the commercial side is virtually always sailing/flying, while military officers are often not sailing/flying during the course of a normal career. Certainly spending too much time away from your community will hurt you in promoting. So, I agree with your comments OldPotatoe. It is a delicate balance to spend enough time flying, while still getting to the Pentagon, be on a staff, pick up a Masters Degree, etc and do all of those things our commercial counterparts don’t necessarily have to do.
But, I’m sure that all of us who have had the honor to serve our country in the US Navy gladly took on those non flying/non sailing assignments, so that we could get back to the fun stuff of operating at sea. Quote:
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#105
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I transited the Panama Canal on a USNS ship as the Repair Officer, for me it was like being on a cruise ship. I've conned carriers through the Suez Canal, that was nerve-wracking every time. The Egyptian Pilot didn't add much value unless we were in the Bitter Lake. |
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