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USS Benfold engineering casualty
- Thread starter snake020
- Start date
These are the emergency start connections on a Flt I and IIA. EOSS does have the valve lineup. But what type of hose or how it comes from the helo to the valve is a mystery.
So it’s in EOSS, but no mention of the materials required to execute the procedure? And can’t help to slam the painting in that space.
This seems like a case where the designers actually had an idea for an emergency procedure for a catastrophic failure and had a system built to support it. Yet for some reason the users just decided to never learn how to do it.
Maybe the SWOs said, "Well, we don't own the helos, or know how to run them, so... No."
All of this might be a moot point for this scenario (but it's a cool "gee whiz" thing to learn) as I'm not sure what the procedure is to decontaminate their fuel tanks, especially while underway. We sure can't do it airborne and have a relight.
My days of deploying on USS ship are long over as I'm now retired. But my current employment is as a Port Engineer for a Norfolk based DDG. This conversation is certainly interesting for me and I've asked how we could do this today given the recent circumstances. Not much banter on lets try this out and see if we can do it.
USS Benfold (DDG 65) is a Flight I. The Flight IIA (hangar) ships start with DDG 79. But also, I'm not sure how you move a helo out to the flight deck without power for RAST. I only did a short stint on a DDG, but I don't think running the APU in the hangar is a thing either.
Not trying to throw stones to our lurker SWOs, but the lack of interest in how you...start the fucking engines...is kind of funny to me. I'm guessing it's one of those "well they're always on and someone else does it in port when not so I don't need to care because I have AEGIS and rules of the road to learn"
Deck right near the waterline too
I get what your saying. That said, a helo assisted start would not have been available to the Benfold in their situation. And once your out of start air, you're out of Slitchz.
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So if it was bad fuel... How does one clean/decon a big boat's fuel tanks?
I've done it on a sailboat and a 19ft skiff. It's a HUGE pain in the ass.
Again I know nothing of their situation. But if it was bad fuel, they would have to pump out all storage and service tanks contaminated of said fuel and clean them, by hand. Then maybe even a flush, perhaps. Thats not a quick process. They were underway again once towed into a port kind of quickly, so who knows.
I thought about this as if I were on an independent deployer and wanted to fly the det off and maybe bring the ship back a pallet of water and some soggy paper plates of rice and peas.
Manually unlatch RAST and hopefully have enough accumulator pressure to open beams by manually actuating the valve. Pry or jack if it dumps but doesn’t open. Hand-move out to flight position. Start up and wave adios.
I’ve heard APU can be run in the hangar with the exhaust abatement hose in there. Never heard of it being used.