CAPT Dechaineux on the bridge of HMAS Australia.
Posted on 12/25/2008 3:51:29 PM PST by naturalman1975
I knew a guy who was a cook on the USS Chopper. It was a diesel boat with a test depth of 400 feet.
They had a stern planes jam and that took it to over 1,000 feet down. They emergency blew and made it back tot he surface at an 80 degree up angle. They broached the surface and then resubmerged down to about 250 feet and then syurfaced again.
In GTMO there is a bar on a pier and above the bar inside there is a wooden plaque with all their signatureson it under the logo “The 1,000 Foot Club”
These safety reforms sounds just like they’re adopting the Navy’s “SUBSAFE” program which came about after the loss of the USS Thresher in 1963.
From 1915 to 1963 the U.S. Navy lost 16 submarines to non-combat accidents.
From the beginning of SUBSAFE to present day, not one SUBSAFE certified submarine has been lost.
CAPT Dechaineux on the bridge of HMAS Australia.
Thanks for the ping!
OK, thanks for the updates. I don’t remember where I got that info from - perhaps scuttlebutt.
“Typically hoses have a burst rating of 4x working pressure...”
I now do not remember the safety factor, though it was much higher than 4X WP. It is specified in the Mil-Spec, but I no longer remember the number...
Rather ordinary hoses would have a 4X WP safety factor.
Experimentally I made a braided hose in such a way that the yarns were locked so that they could not work together as they are supposed to do - the hose burst at a fraction of rated pressure. So much for that mfg idea...
As the father of a glow-worm bubblehead, all I can do is read it and shudder at the thought.
Perhaps that is true on the newer boats but it is not true on the older SSNs & SSBNs I sailed on.
Not true for any manned submarine in the USN or other navies. They all have XX% (I can't recall the minimum required) reserve buoyancy with ballast tanks empty (completely blown).
There are several factors which can make achieving that positive buoyancy dicey:
a.) if you're leaking into the people tube (interior of the boat), every ton of seawater taken in = a ton of reserve buoyancy lost;
b.) when you blow ballast tanks at test depth, you're not instantly ridding yourself of all the seawater in the ballast tanks ... you're simply putting a bubble of high-pressure air in the tanks to make a change from the normal submerged neutral buoyancy to a positive buoyancy. As the boat begins to rise the bubble expands, pushing more seawater out of the ballast tanks, giving even more positive buoyancy and so on ... until you finally reach then surface and the ballast tanks are finally empty.
However keep in mind factor 'a' above ... enough water in the people tube and you lose positive buoyancy, and you kiss your ass goodbye. WW II fleet boats were designed with enough positive reserve buoyancy to be able to survive 1 completely flooded compartment, but modern boats have fewer compartments - though I can't speak for RAN Collins class boats, US nukes can't survive a fully flooded compartment. ;
c.) Your rate of rise towards the surface CAN be enhanced by increasing speed and putting 'Rise' on the control planes.
As an aside, the Thresher NEARLY made it to the surface (within a couple hundred feet!) before they lost speed and became negatively buoyant and began back down to 10,000 feet, imploding and breaking up on the way down ... God rest your souls, my brothers of the 'Phins!
- A Cold War submarine vet (SSN-588, SSBN-629B, SSN-669 plank-owner)
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