I’m off on holiday for a couple of weeks and then have a conference out in Monterey so my posting may be a bit sporadic (read non-existent) until I get back. I hope to visit the museum at Los Alamos on my travels (assuming I’m allowed to) so I might have some good pictures to share on my return.
In the meantime I leave you with a story that broke in the UK this morning about the cause of an accident on a UK nuclear submarine in 2002:
A nuclear submarine crashed after tracing paper was used to mark its course, it has emerged.
HMS Trafalgar ran aground during a training exercise off the coast of Skye in November 2002.
A Royal Navy board of inquiry criticised the decision to put tracing paper over charts so student officers could not draw on them.
It said the tracing paper obscured vital information that could have prevented the crash.
Classic.
It reminds me of when the Royal Navy was awarded the Ignoble Peace Prize a few years back ‘for ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout “Bang!“’.
I don’t know whether to laugh (with great cynicism, preferably over a strong drink) or cry (in the strong drink).
RAF Harriers used to fly around with three pieces of red plywood in the nose labelled “Laser Target Designator”.
We Brits know a thing or two about austerity y’know!
The Royal Navy is in a bind for money. They want the Queen Elizabeth CVF, but if they get that, they wont have the surface combatants to escort it. If they spend money on keeping their destroyer/frigate numbers up, no aircraft carrier.
And why does the UK insist on keeping their SSBNs/Tridents when they are yelling “boom” instead of firing live rounds and using tracing paper over their charts?
Human factor always makes sure that: Stuff Happens!