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> Aircraft carriers are driven by issuing voice commands to (mostly undertrained) helmsman in an environment where any additional noise could result in a misund

> Aircraft carriers are driven by issuing voice commands to (mostly undertrained) helmsman in an environment where any additional noise could result in a misunderstood command and disaster. ... Imagine driving a car by telling the driver what to do from the passenger seat. Not just a "turn left up there," but "turn the wheel 15 degrees to the left, ok, now turn the wheel back to center, ok, now turn it back three degrees to the right because you oversteered..." It's insane." Former aircraft carrier OOD (and nuke SWO) here. I agree with your comment about fatigue, but did you get much bridge time? At least back in the day, the conning officer's voice commands weren't so micro-managey. They were along the lines of, "Right 15 degrees rudder [0], steady on course 090," which the helmsman would repeat back to make sure the command was correctly understood. The helmsman would then turn the wheel as needed to make the turn and steady up on the ordered course. [0] The conning officer would specify the rudder angle in part to control how much the ship would heel in the turn. That can be important when you have armed jet aircraft driving around on the flight deck.

drblast 9y ago
I spent nine months as the conning officer on an aircraft carrier and qualified as OOD. On numerous occasions we narrowly averted disaster because the helmsman misunderstood the command, or repeated back the correct command but did the opposite. In many cases those helmsmen were undertrained or tired, as a direct result of cuts in manning/funding and additional requirements. The "old" people in the navy, including many of the admirals at the time (ten years ago) had many of the same opinions as those expressed in the article (they need to stop looking at radar!!!) What those people didn't seem to realize is that we were doing the same things they were doing 20 years prior with about half the crew they had.

drblast 9y ago

I spent nine months as the conning officer on an aircraft carrier and qualified as OOD. On numerous occasions we narrowly averted disaster because the helmsman misunderstood the command, or repeated back the correct command but did the opposite. In many cases those helmsmen were undertrained or tired, as a direct result of cuts in manning/funding and additional requirements. The "old" people in the navy, including many of the admirals at the time (ten years ago) had many of the same opinions as those expressed in the article (they need to stop looking at radar!!!) What those people didn't seem to realize is that we were doing the same things they were doing 20 years prior with about half the crew they had.