Why Did the USS Thresher Sink? Finally, the Navy Is Being Forced to Tell Us

[hal2kilo]

Wow that is so cool. UAVs and drone swarms. No need for the telemetry antenna sticking out of the water anymore. Crap; I feel like a Neanderthal now... Well actually I felt like that when I went on one of the Trident Boats and they were loading torpedoes into the tubes and there wasn't a block and tackle anywhere........................

I do have some cool pictures of when the Trident did the loop de loop during some of the initial test firings when a nozzle actuator broke during launch. The nozzle locked over to one side when the water slapped it when exiting the water. They had to do the emergency destruct on it. Spooky having a trident missile doing loops and no control.

This image is from a web site. I have some original sequence launch photos when we were working at the Cape in support of the Tennessee.

Trident II: Flipping a Flop

How the missile rose, phoenix-like, from utter failure in its first at-sea launch to become the most reliable such weapon in Navy history.

www.usni.org

https://www.reddit.com/r/submarines/comments/atrzoq

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That footage was taken by a person, who is no longer with us that was on the Launch Area Support Ship (LASS). He worked for the same company I retired from. The Navy tried to confiscate the video tape from him and the Cape Field Site Manager intervened, and thus it's here for the world to see. Really, a true story.
At Complex 30, at the Cape, NOTU teaches the MT crews how to convert a missile. I.e. take out the real bangy thing, and put in instrumented heads. Also, the destruct hardware also has to be installed. There was this Lockheed Engineer who also supported this effort who reminded me of the scientist from Independence Day (data). He says hey you want me to show you exactly why that missile did the pinwheel? And what we did to fix it? Well, I can't go into anymore detail, but the guy was really facinating.