"mmc" wrote in
g.com:

I rode the "Inflict", "Leader" and the "Adroit" in the 80s. Only
vessels I ever rode that "rained" below decks! I'd toss my bedroll in
the reel room because it was dryer than the berthing comparment and I
wouldn't have to "hot bunk". Ha!


I rode Adroit in the late 60's, don't remember when. I think I worked
on Leader, too, but don't remember Inflict.

Navy had this goofy flying fishing lure about 15 ft long with scanning
side looking sonar that would draw a pretty nice picture of the bottom
from 15' above it. The sweeps towed it and its computer "flew" it from
a depth sonar that was separate. It's big problem is it had no forward
looking sonar that could see that bouy chain or vertical wall the sweep
was dragging it into a 4 knots. They crashed a lot, bit rebuild
problem. Our machinists took a shine to it when they saw it and made us
a big stainless barbed fishhook we strapped to it in the shop before
someone "important" came to see this boondoggle. It looked like a
fishing lure with a wing, then...(c;]

The other fun thing about this boondoggle was the 2=cylinder, computer-
controlled, diesel genset built into a little fiberglass lawn building
they bolted to the deck of the sweeps to power it. The genset was, when
it was working, dead accurate on 60 Hz so the synchronous scanner motors
in the console tracked the bottom correctly. UNFORTUNATELY, the idiot
that designed it built it BACKWARDS for good safety! The electronics
held the throttle CLOSED! When the electronics failed, this little V-
twin diesel engine's throttle went wide open....really revving the
little bugger up! One MSO captain, I forget which, told his crew to
"Get that damned thing off my deck!" out in the harbor. At wide open
throttle, brave men unsecured it from the deck and pushed it overboard
at full throttle with a black column of smoke rising several hundred
feet straight up on a calm day. As the cabinet had enough air in it for
a few seconds this way, you could hear it running UNDERWATER....at least
until water finally filled the cabinet over the intake....Then it
exploded underwater, most impressive!

The genset re-design took a while and probably cost as much as the whole
program, of course. Stupid idiots. I watched one explode at full
throttle in the parking lot behind the ET shop at MFSGA, formerly
Minecraft Support Unit, one day. Blew the rod right through the side of
the block! BOOM!.....knock, knock, knock....(c;]

I was sent to Minelant to build it a "Qualifications Laboratory" to take
some of the lower level calibrations like meters and simple generators
and scopes off the load of the CNSYD shipyard's lab they were taking
them to. I loved buying new equipment for you. In '77-'79, I got to do
the same thing for the Shah's Iranian Air Force in Tehran....on a
grander scale!