Posted on 12/24/2019 11:17:04 AM PST by Retain Mike
To guide the McCain, Bordeaux relied upon a navigation system the Navy considered a triumph of technology and thrift. It featured slick black touch screens to operate the ship’s wheel and propellers. It knit together information from radars and digital maps. It would save money by requiring fewer sailors to safely steer the ship.
Bordeaux felt confident using the system to control the speed and heading of the ship. But there were many things he did not understand about the array of dials, arrows and data that filled the touch screen.
“There was actually a lot of functions on there that I had no clue what on earth they did,” Bordeaux said of the system.
Bordeaux, one of the newest sailors on the ship, was joined in uncertainty by one of the most seasoned, Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, captain of the McCain.
A 19-year Navy veteran, Sanchez had watched as technicians replaced the ship’s traditional steering controls a year earlier with the new navigation system. Almost from the start, it caused him headaches. The system constantly indicated problems with steering. They were mostly false alarms, quickly fixed, but by March 2017, Sanchez’s engineers were calling the system “unstable,” with “multiple and cascading failures regularly.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
I cannot imagine that the system was not rigorously tested after installation and that all watchstanders who might touch it were not trained and exercised. Deming regularly said that 85 percent of process failures were the fault of management.
I’m curious to know. What happens to this touch screen system when an Exocet hits? My phone does not respond well to being dropped. I cannot imagine what would happen to it in an explosion and fire, even if I survived...
I think the CYA comes from the fact the senior Navy billets were held by people Obama wanted.
I have the perception that a jar of jam should be required equipment for sailors on ships, because the first time something goes wrong they are going to be toast.
I can buy that. The CYA was, “U, guilty? Leadership??? No way!”
If I were Trump, I would have made it my missions to terminate the entire top brass of the entire military ASAP, knowing they were hired by Obama.
Too bad. If you are going to have these systems onboard ship, then the people who use them need to be trained on a simulator and learn how to handle a variety of problems.
But the captain is still blamed.
737 MAX
if its on a .gov network, don’t blame Word or Windows.
gov required McAfee or similar antivirus running in the background is consuming resources (RAM, CPU, and disk time).
if its a DoD network, its even worse.
Any software engineer worth his salt (pun intended) could tell you that the risk isn’t worth it. Crazy not to have manual control over the ship.
I confess to being a little shocked that the captain didn’t make it his business to understand how his own helm operates.
....very good observation...!! your thoughts can (and should) be applied to the U. S. Air Force (and probably the other services that operate very complicated aircraft, etc...) We used to have an expression: these complicated jets were designed by folks with Masters and Ph.D. degrees; flown by folks with B.S. or B.A. degrees; and are expected to be maintained by troops with high school (if lucky...) or GED diplomas....
It would be easy to track it back.
Or some congressmen made 'speeches' to the company for $400,000 a pop (30 minutes of talking to a half filled room) and American navy personnel's lives were put at risk.
Was Hunter Biden 'employed' at the time? Was Brennan getting a kickback or two or 50? Our liberal elite deep state doesn't give a damn about the lives of our young... of if the system installed is safe or better. Just that deep state 'elites' get their cut.
I imagine this is a separate compiled software and they hope for a wide market. I will also imagine there are a lot of people inside and outside government whose fortunes are tied to the company.
It has to be that way for the Navy to even begin making the claim it is still a meritocracy.
Apparently not the only thing fu**ed up named McCain.
“Unplug the device for a minute or two. Then, plug it back and restart everything. That worked last night and we finally got Acorn back on with the Brit program, we wanted to watch.
We used to do that with the Radar and a few other systems while underway in the old Navy.”
I bought a new 2019 Pilot earlier this year. There were complaints about the infotainment system acting up and taking out the radio, nav and speedometer. Solution- reboot it, turn it off and then back on again. On a forum it was found out if that doesn’t work, plug in a USB keyboard and type in CLT-ALT-DEL. Cars are computers with wheels.
In 1979 we (USS Mars [AFS 1]) managed to get in the path of the USS Cook (FF 1083) which proceeded to cut a very large hole in our hull. No advanced electronics involved, just complete and utter human error.
“On 14 May 1979, USS Cook and Mars collided off Point Loma near San Diego, California, injuring seven.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mars_(AFS-1)#1971–1979
After reading most of these comments, but having been out of the military for quite some time...I have to agree that a lot of our problems could be laid right at the feet of Obama. Why that man was not put in front of a firing squad is beyond me. I’m so glad I was out long before he came to be CIC. Wonder how many men lost their lives because of him?
Obama is not a natural born citizen.
Both parties wanted the Constitution changed without the hassle of amending it.
He should never have been in the Oval Office.
We are cruising up and down the ICW this year. Can’t imagine doing it without having a wheel to hold on to.
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