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I figured I would start a thread about this topic since a lot of people have asked me about it. There will only be discussion of non-technical aspects of the job in this thread. Generalities, trivia, and UNCLASS discussion only. If it isn't on wikipedia, it probably won't be in this thread either. First of all, I'm an enlisted instructor at Nuclear Power Unit Charleston in sunny Goose Creek, South Carolina. I went through Nuclear Field Electrician A-School then Nuclear Power school in South Carolina. After that, I qualified at New York prototype in Balston Spa. After that, I served 4 years onboard a nuclear powered aircraft carrier out of Norfolk, Virginia. After that tour was complete, I applied for and was accepted to instructor duty teaching at prototype. We have nuclear reactors in the Navy? Yes. The first nuclear powered ship was the USS Nautilus in 1954. Her first underway message "Underway on nuclear power" is famous throughout the nuclear community. The first nuclear powered surface ship was the USS Long Beach in 1959. This was the first and only ship in its class. Nuclear powered cruisers have all been removed from service due to problems stemming from funding to manning. Rumors abound that "cruisers are comin back!" but I wouldn't bet on it anytime soon. The first nuclear powered aircraft carrier was the USS Enterprise commissioned in 1961. We currently have around 80 nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines in service. Oh God! Radiation! Atoms!!! We're nearly at 6,000 effective "reactor years" of global service with zero accidents. The average nuclear plant worker in the Navy nuclear propulsion program gets less radiation than the average airdale on the flight deck. Why? We're very safe in what we do. Since I've been alive, no Navy nuke has exceeded their safe yearly limit for zoomies. My career radiation exposure is several orders of magnitude below the amount that would cause the smallest amount of harm. So how do I join this elite fraternity of nerdshoes and WoW guildsmen? Take the ASVAB. Last I heard, the requirements were 80+ with a passing score on the NFQT (google will help you find study guides for this) or 90+ overall with the NFQT waived. If anyone has a more up to date numbers, let me know. After that, you go through boot camp. You'll probably be singled out for being a nuke candidate. This is your first taste of the hatred non-nukes have for us. It'll never go away, just get used to it. During boot camp, you'll get assigned your rate. You'll either be an electrician, electronics tech, or mechanic. You don't really get to choose. It's based entirely off of a-school class balancing for your specific class. Welcome to the Navy. What's this nuke school thing? I hear its just like college!!! Not so much. Here's a video thats shown to boot camp recruits to keep them from dropping out of boot camp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh-HXQ5r8a8&feature=related The best way to describe it is drinking from a fire hose while trying to eat an elephant one bite at a time. The material isn't difficult so much as the pace is extremely fast. You're expected to make decent grades or you go on a higher level of mandatory study hours. I personally was required to study 3 extra hours per day every day with a total of 25 hours of extra study a week in addition to class. If you fail too many exams, you get kicked out. A-School and power school are all theory. Prototype training is mainly technical applications and hands on training. Each segment of training is 6 months long. The culmination of your training is a final oral board where you prove your ability at operating your watchstation to a group of instructors that ask you questions for a while. Kicked out? I dont like kicking If you fail out of A-school, you can be reclassified as another rate and go through a different a-school... or you can go to the fleet as an undesignated E-3 and your life will be a living hell. If you fail out of powerschool/prototype, you will go to the fleet as an E-4 with a rate unless they mast you back to E-3 for dereliction of duty to get rid of that accelerated advancement. How's this fleet thing work? It's ok. You stand a lot of watch, do a lot of maintenance/repairs, and have a lot of training. Training never ends. Nuke working hours are typically longer than our topside counterparts. We also tend to have a much worse duty rotation in-port. Our watchbill is exponentially worse than anyone elses. Also, we have to "go underway" earlier than the rest of the ship because we have to prepare things beforehand. We also stay later after deployments are over to shut things down. First on, last off. Hooyah. On the bright side, we don't do that whole "military" thing very much. You'll almost always wear coveralls. Shiny boots are unheard of. Uniform inspections are pointless and rarely done unless you work for a person that hates you. Everyone is an E-4 or above with most people being E-5. There's not much focus on rank at all. Respect comes from knowledge and technical ability. I cannot imagine being a non-nuke. I would probably get yelled at by someone. What about the blingblingbling? Every single person I know that decided to stay within the nuclear field after they got out scored a 60-90k starting salary working much better hours. While in the Navy, we're one of the few fields that actually has reenlistment bonuses. At the time of this writing, only SEALs, nukes, and one specific breed of cryptotech were getting reenlistment bonuses. http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/reference/messages/Documents/NAVADMINS/NAV2011/NAV11142.txt posted:
KetTarma fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Sep 20, 2011 |
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Mar 24, 2010 03:13
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What kind of jobs can a nuke look forward to once they leave the Navy? I imagine turnover is pretty low at American nuclear plants, since there are so few and competition must be pretty heavy.
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Mar 24, 2010 03:51
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Magnificent Quiver posted:What kind of jobs can a nuke look forward to once they leave the Navy? I imagine turnover is pretty low at American nuclear plants, since there are so few and competition must be pretty heavy. I've read that a good amount of the work force is retiring in the next decade or so and the turnover is going to be rather high. That said, some guys I served with got out and went right to work at plants making drat good money for someone with no degree....but gently caress shiftwork. Also I guess I can answer any fast attack nuke questions, I'm also a pretty decent sea lawyer thanks to being bored as poo poo on watch 
genderstomper58 fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Mar 24, 2010 |
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Mar 24, 2010 04:04
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I've put my balls on a reactor and dipped my hand in radioactive liquid. No x-men children yet but glow in the dark jerk off sessions are hot.
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Mar 24, 2010 04:09
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Sandler311 posted:I've put my balls on a reactor and dipped my hand in radioactive liquid. No x-men children yet but glow in the dark jerk off sessions are hot. where did the primary shield tank go? thats as close as i got  RC owns for jackin it, so many good spots where no one can see you
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Mar 24, 2010 04:11
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KetTarma posted:After that, you go through boot camp. You'll probably be singled out for being a nuke candidate. This is your first taste of the hatred non-nukes have for us. It'll never go away, just get used to it. The reason we hated you in boot camp was that you are the stupidest smart people in the world. Sure you can tell me all about thermodynamics, physics, and how to reach the level cap in WoW in 2 days with no sleep but you can't figure out how to tie a square knot or fold your underwear and will do something incredibly thoughtless that will get us beat for a few hours a day. After that nobody gives a gently caress about you guys.
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Mar 24, 2010 04:12
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Do people fail prototype? I would imagine 'yes', but in that sense, did there seem to be any correlation between Power school success and Prototype ability? I'm lacking in the former (3.0, good to go ).
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Mar 24, 2010 04:13
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Manawski posted:Do people fail prototype? I would imagine 'yes', but in that sense, did there seem to be any correlation between Power school success and Prototype ability? I'm lacking in the former (3.0, good to go I didn't see much correlation between the two. After the initial school phase of prototype it seemed more to be who can bother people for checkouts more often. Tests as I recall were very rare, it was all about getting those stupid rear end checkouts and making sure your qual watches are taken care of. Board wasn't that bad at all, even with the civilian in there(I had a civilian and an E-6 if I recall correctly). Don't think hardly anyone fails prototype, I had a 3.7 in power school but ended with like a 2.9 in prototype
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Mar 24, 2010 04:17
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I had quite a few people in my class fail prototype. I had quite a few people in my class fail. Something like 10% over all or each school. I can't recall. We got asked why once. And screw your technobabble. Not fun to say I put my balls on a tank of water guarding the reactor.
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Mar 24, 2010 04:39
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KetTarma posted:Oh God! Radiation! Atoms!!! COUGHTHRESHERCOUGH
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Mar 24, 2010 05:39
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I didn't see any Officers fail prototype. The one guy that should have, didn't. He was an idiot who lacked any social skills and knowledge, and actually believed he couldn't trust his watchstanders. He failed his 1A, for those of you who know what that is. He's now on a boat somewhere. Oh god I don't want to be in the same ocean as him.
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Mar 24, 2010 07:09
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Officers and enlisted definitely fail prototype. If they miss their graduation date, it's pretty much over. Failing the final exam or final oral board too many times is also a goodbye. There is definitely a lot of hatred for nukes out in the fleet. Fast advancement, not having to play in shipwide events, and our drills make the entire ship hot. The Thresher's reactor is still intact  The rest of the ship, however, is quite imploded. Flooding at test depth tends to do that.
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Mar 24, 2010 10:08
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I'm in prototype in NY right now (MARF, enlisted) if anyone has any questions about it.
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Mar 24, 2010 11:12
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Hagetaka posted:COUGHTHRESHERCOUGH No one remembers the Scorpion except conspiracy theorists.
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Mar 24, 2010 11:27
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KetTarma posted:
I feel much worse for the conventionals they stick in reactor, glad they sent my rear end to engineering on the reagan
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Mar 24, 2010 15:04
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What's the age cutoff for getting into one of these programs? When I was 19 I took the asvab and they were pushing nuke on me, but I was a dumb kid and had my head up my rear end. I'm nearly 26 now, and if my last career option falls through I'd like to go back and try this out.
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Mar 25, 2010 03:00
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On boomers nukes have to do every single drill. There is no drill nukes do not respond to. Also of the four drills you will do every week, three will be in engineering spaces. That and you better not hope there is a fire in the engineering spaces as a drill or you will see a lot of confused coners getting lost when there are only 3 levels. And you get to hear chiefs say, "This is the third time I've ever been in this space."
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Mar 25, 2010 03:15
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Moloch posted:What's the age cutoff for getting into one of these programs? When I was 19 I took the asvab and they were pushing nuke on me, but I was a dumb kid and had my head up my rear end. I'm nearly 26 now, and if my last career option falls through I'd like to go back and try this out. For officers, the cutoff for nuke is 29. Not sure how it works on the enlisted side.
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Mar 25, 2010 03:32
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Sandler311 posted:On boomers nukes have to do every single drill. There is no drill nukes do not respond to. Also of the four drills you will do every week, three will be in engineering spaces. what do y'all do for like launch drills? the only good time to be a nuke for us was when they were doing a bunch of FT/TM drills since we didnt have to do poo poo, it almost felt like we were doing something wrong
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Mar 25, 2010 03:34
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I am trying to remember, but we had hydraulics in the engineering spaces so the mechanics had to deal with that. It may take me awhile to remember the whole drill though.
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Mar 25, 2010 04:26
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Sandler311 posted:I am trying to remember, but we had hydraulics in the engineering spaces so the mechanics had to deal with that. It may take me awhile to remember the whole drill though. haha no need, only a gangers usually touched hydraulics on our boat which was nice
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Mar 25, 2010 04:34
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Sandler311 posted:On boomers nukes have to do every single drill. There is no drill nukes do not respond to. Not true unless you don't consider things like fire control tracking party, section tracking party, torpedo reload team, continuous comms exercises, or any of the missile alert or missile drills short of actual battlestations to be drills. Yeah, nukes have to respond to everything that's associated with an alarm but so does everyone else.
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Mar 25, 2010 19:12
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I actually enjoyed tracking fake targets on a laptop. We routinely let sonar know they were tracking things 20 miles inland.
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Mar 25, 2010 19:35
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Cerekk posted:Not true unless you don't consider things like fire control tracking party, section tracking party, torpedo reload team, continuous comms exercises, or any of the missile alert or missile drills short of actual battlestations to be drills. Yeah, nukes have to respond to everything that's associated with an alarm but so does everyone else. on our boat the ERS and AEA went to control for tracking parties and various nukes had to help reload torpedoes
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Mar 25, 2010 23:05
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:No one remembers the Scorpion except conspiracy theorists. The Scorpion probably had a pickle blow. Not the best example when it comes to picking on nukes. (The Thresher didn't blow, but there are theories that one of the controlmen scrammed the reactor at a time when the ship critically needed the power. It cost Rickover a lot of sleep)
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Mar 26, 2010 05:25
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Hagetaka posted:The Scorpion probably had a pickle blow. Not the best example when it comes to picking on nukes. It was in the procedure back then to scram the reactor during flooding, which is pretty retarded. I read somewhere that it "blew up" due to the pressure in the hull increasing so quickly from the flooding, but I dunno that sounds pretty hard to do. I dunno what this pickle talk means though
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Mar 26, 2010 13:05
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wikipedia posted:09:09: It is believed a brazed pipe-joint ruptures in the engine room. The crew would have attempted to stop the leak; at the same time, the engine room would be filling with a cloud of mist. Under the circumstances, Commander Harvey's likely decision would have been to order full speed, full rise on the fairwater planes, and blowing main ballast in order to surface. Due to Joule-Thomson effect, the pressurized air rapidly expanding in the pipes cools down, condensing moisture and depositing it on strainers installed in the system to protect the moving parts of the valves; in only a few seconds the moisture freezes, clogging the strainers and blocking the air flow, halting the effort to blow ballast. Water leaking from the broken pipe most likely causes short circuits leading to an automatic shutdown of the ship's reactor, causing a loss of propulsion. The Scorpion is believed to have blown up from a torpedo self-starting itself due to a short circuit. I have a book sitting on my desk talking about how it was actually blown up by the Soviets 
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Mar 26, 2010 16:07
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I know something similar (interruption in ballast blow) happened to my father on an old diesel sub during sea trials (except one side froze up, they listed to someting insane like 30 degrees before getting out of the water and righting). I'd be curious to know what the fix was, if I wasn't kinda leery of asking questions about subs online.
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Mar 26, 2010 16:26
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KetTarma posted:The Scorpion is believed to have blown up from a torpedo self-starting itself due to a short circuit. I have a book sitting on my desk talking about how it was actually blown up by the Soviets I'd have to see something a little more substantial than wikipedia to believe that because we had to learn about the thresher like 600 times for QA poo poo and I never once saw mention of a short causing a scram. Also read it was an unisolable weld on msw, not a braze. Maybe I just drank myself dumb though edit; looks like you're right on both counts, they just were forced to isolate the secondary and no frsu procedure existed at the time so they were screwed(this is all on public websites so no cries for opsec) genderstomper58 fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Mar 26, 2010 |
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Mar 26, 2010 17:14
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Hagetaka posted:I know something similar (interruption in ballast blow) happened to my father on an old diesel sub during sea trials (except one side froze up, they listed to someting insane like 30 degrees before getting out of the water and righting). they dry the hell out of the air before they pressurize it, so that when it comes back out into the ballast tanks, there's no moisture in the HP air to freeze valves shut
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Mar 26, 2010 21:39
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I got out in May 2007 and I'm working on my SRO license at a commercial nuke plant right now so I can answer questions from people getting out and wanting to stay in the field.Magnificent Quiver posted:What kind of jobs can a nuke look forward to once they leave the Navy? I imagine turnover is pretty low at American nuclear plants, since there are so few and competition must be pretty heavy. The jobs have died down lately it seems. The economy probably has something to do with it and the unusually mild summer of last year probably has something to do with it. I know my plant went into a hiring freeze for a while and even now doesn't seem to be hiring much. Three years ago when I got out there were jobs all over the place though. I excluded myself from applying at any job in the south east part of the country and was still able to find a lot of interviews. Lots of new plants are in the licensing phase right now though and like moker said the workforce is pretty old on average. I think the number of operators at my plant right now that are eligible for retirement in the next few years is around 30, and that's out of probably 80-ish people. I should note that the jobs that I interviewed for outside of the nuclear field were also promising. I was an ET and I was interviewing for jobs around the 50-60k base pay range for I&C tech work before I went for the real money.
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Mar 26, 2010 23:07
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^^^^How bad is the licensing school? My mother isn't stupid and yet she was coming home every night stressed as gently caress and studying her rear end off. Some nights she'd look like she wanted to cry. Also if you don't make it through (she said a good number of people in her class didn't), do you get fired? She's union and iirc she was forced to go through the school to keep her job and had to pass. My uncle and both parents were navy nukes. My uncle and mother stayed nuke in the civvie life and make absolute bank (My mother is a licensed reactor operator so she pulls around 90-110 an hour). I met a kid in Jax who said he went through nuke school, got out to the fleet and was in the middle of his PQS when he got called back. Apparently one of his tests was graded incorrectly (the score was still passing), because of this he lost his job (had to rerate) and the guy who graded the test was pulled from retirement and NJPed/courtmartialed?(forget which). Basically the guy lost his vet status/all benefits. Can something like this happen? Or was PO3 dumbass making poo poo up? LordNad fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Mar 26, 2010 |
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Mar 26, 2010 23:27
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Cerekk posted:they dry the hell out of the air before they pressurize it, so that when it comes back out into the ballast tanks, there's no moisture in the HP air to freeze valves shut Theres more to it that I dunno if you can really get into on an internet forum also gently caress the HPAD
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Mar 26, 2010 23:38
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LordNad posted:^^^^How bad is the licensing school? My mother isn't stupid and yet she was coming home every night stressed as gently caress and studying her rear end off. Some nights she'd look like she wanted to cry. Also if you don't make it through (she said a good number of people in her class didn't), do you get fired? She's union and iirc she was forced to go through the school to keep her job and had to pass. It's very tough. Easily the hardest thing that I've ever attempted. It's like the Navy Nuke pipeline on speed and this time around they aren't bashful about failing people out. At our plant people don't get fired if they don't make it through license class, they either get moved down to a NLO (non-licensed operator) position or they go somewhere other than operations. My plant is non-union though so it doesn't have the problems that some union plants do with that process. I worked an outage at Fermi and their ROs were non-union and their NLOs were union so if they went to license class and got kicked back to NLO they lose all of their seniority and everything that came with it.
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Mar 27, 2010 00:33
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belt posted:It's very tough. Easily the hardest thing that I've ever attempted. It's like the Navy Nuke pipeline on speed and this time around they aren't bashful about failing people out. At our plant people don't get fired if they don't make it through license class, they either get moved down to a NLO (non-licensed operator) position or they go somewhere other than operations. My plant is non-union though so it doesn't have the problems that some union plants do with that process. Yeah when she said she was one of a handful of female ROs in the country, I thought it was some bullshit thing she made up to make herself feel better. Don't know about my uncle's plant (Seabrook station), but my mother says her plant (Pilgrim think? they change hands every so many years) has it's own commandoesque team for defense. Do you guys have the same thing? Trumped up security guards running around with submachine guns and tacticool poo poo?
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Mar 27, 2010 00:59
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LordNad posted:Yeah when she said she was one of a handful of female ROs in the country, I thought it was some bullshit thing she made up to make herself feel better. Don't know about my uncle's plant (Seabrook station), but my mother says her plant (Pilgrim think? they change hands every so many years) has it's own commandoesque team for defense. Do you guys have the same thing? Trumped up security guards running around with submachine guns and tacticool poo poo? I used to live near BWXT Pantex and they had their own security force and were more than prepared to handle pretty much any threat. At my high school, we actually had to do radiation drills. Fun poo poo.
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Mar 27, 2010 01:48
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Potential Nuke here with a question or two. First off, I say potentially because so far all I've done is take the ASVAB and somehow, without studying or doing any real preparation what-so-ever got a high enough score to even be considered for the Nuclear program (my AFQT score was a 95). Keep in mind I'm 23 and haven't been in school since I graduated HS in 2005. However, I still have to take the NFQT/NAPT because the sum of my scores on these individual tests from the ASVAB: VE+AR+MK+MC or AR+MK+EI+GS, didn't add up to 252 (I got 251). My recruiter is currently trying to set up that test for me now, and oddly enough when I asked him what was on the test he said it was classified. Though from what I've gathered online it's just some multiple choice test about basic Algebra, Physics, Chemistry, and some other stuff I think. Honestly, this field couldn't be any more different than what I've been working in for the last 5 or so years (Website Development), and that is part of the reason I want to go this route in the Navy (that and I'm tired of being a freelance website developer). The other reason is that everyone keeps saying this field is quite possibly the most challenging rating (aside from the SEALS I think) and honestly I feel like I could use a real challenge after all these years. I guess part of me is still a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but I am ready to do what I need to do to get through it all since there really isn't anything out here for me anymore. Quick question, once you go through your schooling and are ready to join the fleet, what determines if you're going to be on a Carrier or a Sub? Do you actually get to choose or is it another one of those "Needs of the Navy" situations? Which is better to be on Sub or Carrier? Moloch posted:What's the age cutoff for getting into one of these programs? When I was 19 I took the asvab and they were pushing nuke on me, but I was a dumb kid and had my head up my rear end. I'm nearly 26 now, and if my last career option falls through I'd like to go back and try this out. From what I've read you can't be older than 24 to enlist into the program. Also, here is a good place for info on the Nuclear Program (and basically any military related job if you look through the rest of the site): http://usmilitary.about.com/od/enlistedjob1/a/nuclear.htm
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Mar 27, 2010 05:34
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Torvec posted:Quick question, once you go through your schooling and are ready to join the fleet, what determines if you're going to be on a Carrier or a Sub? Do you actually get to choose or is it another one of those "Needs of the Navy" situations? Which is better to be on Sub or Carrier? Just needs of the Navy. You will fill out a wish list but they may or may not even look at it in my experience. In my NPTU class almost everyone went to carriers, sub vols or not. My first choice was Groton and my second to last choice was a carrier out of Bremerton and I went to a carrier out of Bremerton. Luckily that turned out to be the nicest thing the Navy ever did for me. LordNad posted:Yeah when she said she was one of a handful of female ROs in the country, I thought it was some bullshit thing she made up to make herself feel better. Don't know about my uncle's plant (Seabrook station), but my mother says her plant (Pilgrim think? they change hands every so many years) has it's own commandoesque team for defense. Do you guys have the same thing? Trumped up security guards running around with submachine guns and tacticool poo poo? We have our own in house security force. We actually have more security personnel than any other department. They carry around M16's and some sort of pistol. I can't really say much else about our security because that's one of the only things in commercial nuclear power that is classified (well not classified but considered "safeguards information" by the NRC).
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Mar 27, 2010 12:41
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Torvec posted:Honestly, this field couldn't be any more different than what I've been working in for the last 5 or so years (Website Development), and that is part of the reason I want to go this route in the Navy (that and I'm tired of being a freelance website developer). You will be genuinely surprised how many website developers you will run into in your traverses as a nuke. Especially if you get ET, they love that poo poo 
Manawski fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Mar 27, 2010 |
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Mar 27, 2010 12:57
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Torvec posted:Im pretty sure you can find NFQT study guides at major bookstores. It's not classified. It's basically what you think it is. You can volunteer for submarines. You will either be stationed on a carrier or sub. I was a sub volunteer. I was stationed on a carrier. Once you are designated as going to a sub or carrier, you are forever a submariner or surface dude. The only way to change from one to the other is to be medically DQed from submarine duty. Don't ask if there's any way around that. There isn't. No, you can't get it in your contract. You just have to hope that submarines are undermanned the week you graduate.
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Mar 27, 2010 13:14
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