Sunday, September 13, 2009
Checking in with FOPP
I had a friend of mine, older fellow, CEO of a company I was consulting for out in San Diego- and one afternoon we were down by the water and a sub floated by; very cool; and he described the make and model like it was a Chevy Malibu; and I said- "How do you know so much about submarines," and he says- "Oh, I was a sub commander during the cold war," and I thought that was something; so it was not the first time I had come in contact with the silent service; so I asked the kicker- "How fast and how deep can they go?" to which his reply was- "No Comment," and then I knew he was legit, because they cannot talk about those two items at all. Good for Brandon. Subs are very interesting, very expensive rides; and not all Navy gets to go aboard. Tell Brandon to stay focused and study physics with en emphasis upon fluid dynamics and sonar. He may also get a jump ahead if he studies multi-spectrum signature theory, i.e. X-ray, infrared, etc., Go Navy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
To add a little to you're story. And thanks for the information for Brandon, one of the old scout masters who is now a commisioner who was on a "secret sub". He tells us some extremely top secret or at least used to be top secret stories. Like how the US received the "rubber inforced hulls" There is a cliff face off of shore I won't say where but under the water line is a tunnel for approx. 4 small secret subs. They took one out, whent to russia and the Navy seals dove over to one of there subs and cut a 4x4 foot section off so we can study it. It took about 2 months before the Russians knew it was missing. He said by then they were retrofitting the first of many with the new rubber. To listen to this old old Navy guy is kind of like listening to a movie play out in little parts.
Recently they re-built the Hood Canal bridge. The Navy actually overseen the construction so the subs can get under it with out detection. Although if it wasn't illegal to stop on the bridge you can see them go by about 14 ft under water.
Its extremely fascinating what the Navy does. Out here so close to Bremerton we did see one sub come in to port. I believe it was the Connecticut. The Alabama was leaving -- we knew since the road kill population decreased drastically. They do one hell of a cleanup job. ;-) Sorry had to say it. No disrespect meant.
Brandon too asked how deep and how fast a certain sub can go and reply was --well its written to go 1500 but we go alot deeper when we need to--.
Brandon over the last few years has become so fascinated with subs that even though we were with a friend of mine who was on a sub for 10 yrs and now is a private contractor for them, was guessing what sub it was Brandon was saying what type, how many Nuclear can be on it what type of torpedoes and how big the crew was. It does actually blow me away what he knows about the Navy. As soon as I can get him in his uniform I'll upload it. Were waiting on an opportunity where kids can go out on a sub for 4 days. He seems excited but then again scared. That's OK all in good time. We hope he sticks with it. They are pushing him into engineering. He still wants to be a director but he does understand that engineering is what he is natural at. So we will see. He is only in the 10th grade.
Thanks for the information I'll pass it on. Hope all is well with everyone.
Post a Comment