As a training officer, there are probably few who can match Rear Admiral Rick Breckenridge, but he is my first source of information about life on the newest submarine, the Mississippi.
After about an hourlong interview Thursday, Breckenridge said, "I'm going to you another tip. When you check aboard the doc is going to give you a little baggie that is going to have a little motion sickness pill in it."
"Take the pill," Breckenridge advised.
I, along with eight other news personnel, are to be guests on the Mississippi as it makes its way to Pascagoula on May 25 for the June 2 commissioning ceremony.
Breckenridge was on the coast Thursday giving interviews and touring the Port of Pascagoula and Ingalls Shipbuilding.
"So, I understand you are getting ready to ride," Breckenridge said. "Let me talk to you a little about submarines."
Breckenridge, commander of Submarine Group Two, is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His current role is commanding a force of about 20 submarines.
"It is sort of unfair for you for your first outing to be on a Virginia Class submarine and the most modern and newest one of the class, the Mighty Mississippi," he said.
Fleet submarines since World War II have had some common characteristics such as periscopes and a control room at the top of the ship, he said.
A Virginia Class submarine doesn't have periscopes and the control room has moved from the center top of the boat to a middle level, he said.
The Mississippi and her sister ships are a "revolutionary step in undersea warfare," he said.
Gone is the submariner peering through a periscope, he said.
In the Mississippi there are cameras on the surface, he said. "When you want to look outside the ship it is flat-paneled screens, high definition, and an officer of the deck controls a joystick that rotates a camera," he said.
Cameras include black and white, infrared and high-definition color, he said.
Another change with the Virginia Class is a fly-by-wire system operated by a pilot and co-pilot, he said.
"The have flat panel touch screens and joystick controls and fold up laptop computers," Breckenridge said.
"Super precision" computers can act like autopilots on an airplane, he said.
"The ship maintains its own depth without human interface, which is again scary for an old-fashioned guy like me," he said. "There are times when we can go five minutes without seeing any digital depth change. In the past when I had indications like that it usually meant something was stuck."
Other changes in the Virginia Class include acoustics that are monitored on screens and the ship's torpedo room, which can be modified, he said.
Breckenridge said the Mississippi will have a very active role in the nation‚s defense for more than three decades.
"This ship is going to be tough," he said.
As the interview wound down, Breckenridge offered another tip. "You see a lot of pipes and electrical cable runs," he said.
"The thing that is neat is how well and intricately designed the submarine is with all the equipment," he said.
But for the final bit of advice, he said, "Don't press any buttons that say 'fire‚ or 'launch.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment