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Any Navy Nuclear Propulsion folks on here?


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16 minutes ago, You don't know me said:

Since the money is real, it definitely raises some questions for me.  They don't just give that money away for the hell of it.  There's a reason for it.  I imagine part of if is to retain folks, but another reason is it's a tough life.

I spent just shy of 11 years in the Marine Corps, so I do have some idea of how shitty times can be.  I also know that what the Marine Corps put me through has definitely made me a better person and more willing to put up with some shit that a lot of people simply won't.  All I can do with my son is make sure that he has all the facts before making a decision.

To be completely honest, he doesn't have a whole lot of options right now.  He's very intelligent, but has slacked off some in high school.  His GPA is over 3.5 and he scored a 30 on the ACT, but he has a tendency to not do his homework and relies solely on tests to get his grades up.  This is troublesome for me.  He does have a couple of small colleges talking to him about football, but that wouldn't be a full ride.  We can wait a bit to see what happens with that after football season starts, but I'm not holding my breath.  And the Navy recruiter is going to be pushing for him to make a decision fast while hanging the bonus over his head saying that it's will dry up if he waits too long.  I can tell him that he shouuldn't worry about the bonus, but you all know how teenage boys are with listening to their old man.

A number of years ago, a college recruiter or counselor, not affiliated with UT, described how UT got kids that didn't quite do what they needed to get into ultra-blue-chip schools, so they fell back onto UT based mostly on big test scores.  She described those as "scary-smart kids."  I knew a number of them at UT.  Frankly your kid sounds like one of them.  One of the key things, though, is that they see the error of their ways in high school, and now that "this will go down on your permanent record," are ready to put the pedal to the metal.

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Joined Navy as Nuke candidate back before internets. Totally suckered by recruitment dollars and impulsive in the decision. 

I had 4 months before shipping out and discovered an uncle that had been a Nuke. He was very successful in life, but his line of work couldn’t be more different than nuclear reactor shit so I was pretty surprised. 

I asked him about his experience. Pretty damn close to how blacklab described it. 

I changed my rate to sonar tech and had a relatively awesome experience. I mean daily life was all shitty, but I had great watch-standing in air conditioning. I volunteered for a whole bunch of extra shitty duty because I saw how much harder the engineering shipmates had it. 

Aye aye fuck it. 

Side note. I was kind of like your kid: skip the homework and bring on the tests. 

I know for a fact that I would have never graduated from UT without the maturity and discipline the service instilled. 

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If your kid wants to get into UT and have it paid for then nuke is the way to go.  First get a box.  Wait wrong instructions.  But this is how you really do it. 

Sign up for nuke program

Volunteer for leadership position in boot camp

Volunteer for leadership position in A school

Study your ass off

Don't drink.  Underage drinking is highly frowned upon

Apply for the STA-21 program.  UT is 1 of 12 schools that nukes are allowed to go to for STA-21.  If accepted college is paid for.  You draw E4 pay plus bas and bah.  You have 36 months to complete your BS in Engineering.  Once complete you get a commission as a nuke officer and then go through the nuke pipeline again.  This time as an officer.   6 year obligation. 

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But yeah nuke school is full of people like your kid.  Super smart.  Don't really give a fuck.  High school kids and a lot of college dropouts.  Nuke school punishes you if you fail so you want to succeed.  Dumb kids get made fun of.  You show up thinking you are the smart kid then you find out they got some smart ass weird motherfuckers out there

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36 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

If your kid wants to get into UT and have it paid for then nuke is the way to go.  First get a box.  Wait wrong instructions.  But this is how you really do it. 

Sign up for nuke program

Volunteer for leadership position in boot camp

Volunteer for leadership position in A school

Study your ass off

Don't drink.  Underage drinking is highly frowned upon

Apply for the STA-21 program.  UT is 1 of 12 schools that nukes are allowed to go to for STA-21.  If accepted college is paid for.  You draw E4 pay plus bas and bah.  You have 36 months to complete your BS in Engineering.  Once complete you get a commission as a nuke officer and then go through the nuke pipeline again.  This time as an officer.   6 year obligation. 

The nuc coordinator talked a bit about STA-21. That is ultra competitive, right? I think my kid is smart, but he’s just lazy when it comes to school work. He has never had to work hard to get decent grades and never gave much of a shit to get awesome grades. My fear is that he is going to take that attitude with him to nuc school if he decides to do that. I am trying to give him the no shit outlook, but he is a teenage boy. I swear, if he applied had himself, he would be deciding on which school he wants to attend on an academic scholarship instead of figuring this stuff out.

if he does go this route, I am going to pass your words to him. Awesome advice.

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all kinds of stuff.

When I came back to Austin in 96 I worked in semiconductor for 5 years and then starting building websites and have been in tech/web/programming ever since.
The company I worked for looked specifically for nukes to hire. About half of us here in Austin were nukes.

Lots of oil and gas, electric plants, nuke plants, maintenance in factories, programmers, IT, etc.

The one thing it really does teach you is how to learn stuff and basic engineering principals of all things mechanical and electric.. I can learn anything I set my mind to pretty quick and look at anything mechanical and figure it out.

Many guys went back to college and did something completely different.

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1 hour ago, blacklab said:

all kinds of stuff.

When I came back to Austin in 96 I worked in semiconductor for 5 years and then starting building websites and have been in tech/web/programming ever since.
The company I worked for looked specifically for nukes to hire. About half of us here in Austin were nukes.

Lots of oil and gas, electric plants, nuke plants, maintenance in factories, programmers, IT, etc.

The one thing it really does teach you is how to learn stuff and basic engineering principals of all things mechanical and electric.. I can learn anything I set my mind to pretty quick and look at anything mechanical and figure it out.

Many guys went back to college and did something completely different.

I'm guessing you get all kinds of shit, software, controls, thermo, heat transfer, turbomachinery, and the nuclear shit so you're kinda like an ME: technically broad-based.  What did you do in semiconductors?

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I know over a half dozen ME types in Austin semiconductor -- tons of work available in process controls.  Shit's always breaking, things are always in need of tweaking.  Environmental demands are extreme and equipment has to operate at near 100% precision or things go south quickly.

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7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I know over a half dozen ME types in Austin semiconductor -- tons of work available in process controls.  Shit's always breaking, things are always in need of tweaking.  Environmental demands are extreme and equipment has to operate at near 100% precision or things go south quickly.

Yeah, I was just curious.  Used to be a pretty fair amount of design work, I suppose there still is for those places that haven't offshored everything.  Probably still some small-scale experimental fabs where they're doing a lot of things nearly from scratch.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm guessing you get all kinds of shit, software, controls, thermo, heat transfer, turbomachinery, and the nuclear shit so you're kinda like an ME: technically broad-based.  What did you do in semiconductors?

not so much software, there was no computer controlled stuff in the engine room of the subs I was on. I think they've done some stuff now but don't know as it's classified. The equipment was battle tested designs that had been around for a while. Many of the items on the boat were built in 1945. When I was in I took a trip to Chicago for a wedding. I went with a girl to the museum of science and natural history where there's a German WWII u-boat. Pretty much looked like that. I was explaining to her what everything was, and by the time we walked all the way through I had 20 people following me and asking questions.

There were 3 rates, Electronics, Mechanical and Electrical. I was electrical. I worked on Electrical Controls, switches, breakers, lights, pumps, valves, heat exchanges, turbines, motor-generators, batteries, etc. If it had a wire going into it and wasn't part of the reactor controls that the ET's worked on it was ours. 

I worked for a company called Speedfam that built CPM machines. I was a field service engineer. I kept the machines running and up to spec in the field. Both AMD and Motorolla were customers of ours here in Austin and I worked at both places. 

 

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I’ve read about the STA 21 program a bit recently.  Son is Navy, started as E3 because of Eagle Scout. His rate is FC, firecontrol, don’t have a clue what he does on the ship.  I imagine FC is rather relaxed, because he chose it.  There are women in FC.  He is not the type to choose something strenuous.  I wonder what FC prepares a man for in civilian life? Poor kid is stationed in Hawaii, but right now underway for undetermined amount of time.  I hope he reenlists, because he has 0 experience in civilian world.  22 years old stationed in Hawaii.  3 years AD so far.  

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The range of what people do as former nukes is insane.  Just from my group of 5 of my closest friends.  We were either groomsmen in the each other's weddings or best man type of stuff.  One is the lead engineer at an off shore platform for Chevron.  Another one headed up the design for the Amazon Spheres in Seattle.  He did so well, they gave him the Northern VA project.  Another one works for Google in software research.  Another one works for Facebook at their data center.  I wanted to travel so I did smart pigging for a while then when I got tired of that I landed a sweet gig with operations at a chemical company.  A lot of nukes these days are getting their NERC TO/RC certs.  That alone pays 50 bucks an hour to do nothing.  

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Smart pigging?

Is that like what Vic does, but smarter?

Ha, close. I believe it’s where they put “pigs” (cleaning/leak detection devices) in oil or gas pipelines without interrupting the flow. They can clean the pipe or check for leaks with no loss of production. They use the flow of the product through the pipe to propel the “pig”. I would assume a smart pig sends data back to the operator the entire time it’s in the pipe.
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2 hours ago, EE2B said:


Ha, close. I believe it’s where they put “pigs” (cleaning/leak detection devices) in oil or gas pipelines without interrupting the flow. They can clean the pipe or check for leaks with no loss of production. They use the flow of the product through the pipe to propel the “pig”. I would assume a smart pig sends data back to the operator the entire time it’s in the pipe.

The smart pig usually follows the cleaning pig and using UT can give you a 360 scan to provide wall thickness dents ovalities bulges and things.  

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10 hours ago, blacklab said:

not so much software, there was no computer controlled stuff in the engine room of the subs I was on. I think they've done some stuff now but don't know as it's classified. The equipment was battle tested designs that had been around for a while. Many of the items on the boat were built in 1945. When I was in I took a trip to Chicago for a wedding. I went with a girl to the museum of science and natural history where there's a German WWII u-boat. Pretty much looked like that. I was explaining to her what everything was, and by the time we walked all the way through I had 20 people following me and asking questions.

There were 3 rates, Electronics, Mechanical and Electrical. I was electrical. I worked on Electrical Controls, switches, breakers, lights, pumps, valves, heat exchanges, turbines, motor-generators, batteries, etc. If it had a wire going into it and wasn't part of the reactor controls that the ET's worked on it was ours. 

I worked for a company called Speedfam that built CPM machines. I was a field service engineer. I kept the machines running and up to spec in the field. Both AMD and Motorolla were customers of ours here in Austin and I worked at both places. 

 

It just occurs to me that similar ratings outside nuclear propulsion must have similar skills.  Do non-nuke folks find the same type opportunities?  And does it suck just as bad, but without the radiation and extra pay?

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2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It just occurs to me that similar ratings outside nuclear propulsion must have similar skills.  Do non-nuke folks find the same type opportunities?  And does it suck just as bad, but without the radiation and extra pay?

No.  The skills the nukes get taught isn't the material that makes them so valuable.  It's that they are now trained to know how to train.  

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Most of what I’ve seen, is that it gets them an interview every time. We would auto interview any nuke who applied. It helped that we had nukes in management, but they didn’t always see every application prior to the interview. It was HR that was pushing the applicant as much as it was mgmt. The other plus is that if it is a job that requires a security clearance, you don’t typically have to worry about a kid who was a nuke getting a clearance. It’s the guys coming in off the street that you waste the money on training and end up firing them for not being able to obtain/maintain the clearance.

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Not sucking up to the nukes in this thread, but that program is considered the most difficult non-special forces training in the entire enlisted navy. 

They work super hard and have my respect. 

As a combat systems sailor I had TS clearance and learned the art of extreme troubleshooting. If your mission critical gear is down, you have to jump that shit back to live. We’re all counting on you.jpg. 

Technical sailors are highly sought in the workforce  because we have been trained to keep shit working, often without the supplies required in the opps manuals. Our reward? Sleep. If your shit is working you get to sleep. My precious 

If I had to do it again, I’d skip breaking my arm while diver training. That’s what I really wanted to be. 

 

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Sleep WTF is sleep?

My first boat was a new construction. We did the first 3 sea trials over a couple of day period. It was a stupid schedule that to this day I don't understand the rush.

Go out first day for about 4 hours, come back, work on stuff for a few hours, go back out 8 hours, come back in for 24 hours, everyone got 6 hours off the boat. Of course we drank the whole 6 hours and didn't sleep. Go back to boat and go out 24 hours starting around 7am. By midnight I had had maybe 4 hours sleep total in the last 72 hours. Finally at midnight I get to go to bed and think I'm going to get to sleep for about 6 hours. About 15 minutes after I go to bed I get woken up and told the trim pump caught fire and I need to fix it. Spend 5 hours getting it fixed and buttoned back up. Finally get back to bed at 5am thinking I'm going to get an hour before we all have to get up to get the boat into port. About 5 minutes after I fall asleep, "ALL HANDS COMMENCE FIELD DAY". So now I have to fucking clean a fucking ship that does not need cleaning for an hour rather than sleeping. I mean, no big deal, just about to operate the throttles on a billion dollar submarine with 4 hours sleep in the last 72, it's much more important to clean than get rest.

Over the next day or so I got 2 hours of sleep here, 2 hours of sleep there. I hadn't taken a shower or shaved in 4 days. The captain passed me in the hall and made a comment about my stubble, and I replied "I haven't had 4 hours strait sleep in 5 days. As soon as I do I'll shave" He meekly walked off.

 

 

 

 

 

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Haha.  We ran vulcans and the eng and Co wanted to squeeze in one more drill set before the ORSE team came onboard.  So I was already up for 48 hours.  Cob decides he wants a field day so that's another 4 hours up.  Stay up for monitor evolutions, ORSE exam, and drills as the Reactor operator So now I'm up for about 96 hours with sleep where I can find it. Then I get selected to do an interview with the  ORSE RCA.  He asks the first question I answer it.  The second question was a rod drop and calculate what the new power level would be.  I punch the calculator and I kept hitting the 8 button.  He asks if I'm OK.  I said yeah, the reactor is fine.  I've been up for 96 hours and I really don't feel like dealing with this horse and pony show because I have watch in 2 hours so if he didn't mind I was gonna go to bed.  I got up and went to my rack.  Surprisingly he didn't say anything and said I answered all questions with exceptional responses.   

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3 hours ago, blacklab said:

 

Go out first day for about 4 hours, come back, work on stuff for a few hours, go back out 8 hours, come back in for 24 hours, everyone got 6 hours off the boat. Of course we drank the whole 6 hours and didn't sleep.

 

 

 

 

This is so fucking perfect.  So jam packed full of truth with the young military mind.

No fucks given.  LOlz.

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2 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

But it is for reasons like that that I hated the fuck out of the navy especially the nuke side.  They hold cleaning above sleep.  

yeah, if I had to list the reasons I got out in order I think cleaning would be #1. One of the first field day's on the boat in the shipyard I was in the bilge scooping up oily water that was just going to be back there in an hour due to condensation and looked over at an E6 that came into the navy 10 years before I did doing the exact same thing I was. I remember thinking "I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing 10 years from now, but it's not going to be cleaning up a fucking bilge."

The field days in the shipyard were comical. We would spend 8 hours cleaning, and 10 minutes after we were done the shipyard workers would return to the boat, and it would look exactly like it did before the cleaning. During one field day a welder from the shipyard spent about 4 hours setting up his space to work, meticulously setting up fire proof tarps to protect equipment from the sparks he was about to throw. He left to get his welding equipment and while he was gone some officer saw all the stuff and told someone to clean it all up. The welder came back a while later and was livid his shit was gone. Had to spend the rest of his shift redoing his work.

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4 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

Haha.  We ran vulcans and the eng and Co wanted to squeeze in one more drill set before the ORSE team came onboard.  So I was already up for 48 hours.  Cob decides he wants a field day so that's another 4 hours up.  Stay up for monitor evolutions, ORSE exam, and drills as the Reactor operator So now I'm up for about 96 hours with sleep where I can find it. Then I get selected to do an interview with the  ORSE RCA.  He asks the first question I answer it.  The second question was a rod drop and calculate what the new power level would be.  I punch the calculator and I kept hitting the 8 button.  He asks if I'm OK.  I said yeah, the reactor is fine.  I've been up for 96 hours and I really don't feel like dealing with this horse and pony show because I have watch in 2 hours so if he didn't mind I was gonna go to bed.  I got up and went to my rack.  Surprisingly he didn't say anything and said I answered all questions with exceptional responses.   

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1 hour ago, blacklab said:

yeah, if I had to list the reasons I got out in order I think cleaning would be #1. One of the first field day's on the boat in the shipyard I was in the bilge scooping up oily water that was just going to be back there in an hour due to condensation and looked over at an E6 that came into the navy 10 years before I did doing the exact same thing I was. I remember thinking "I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing 10 years from now, but it's not going to be cleaning up a fucking bilge."

The field days in the shipyard were comical. We would spend 8 hours cleaning, and 10 minutes after we were done the shipyard workers would return to the boat, and it would look exactly like it did before the cleaning. During one field day a welder from the shipyard spent about 4 hours setting up his space to work, meticulously setting up fire proof tarps to protect equipment from the sparks he was about to throw. He left to get his welding equipment and while he was gone some officer saw all the stuff and told someone to clean it all up. The welder came back a while later and was livid his shit was gone. Had to spend the rest of his shift redoing his work.

Hahhahaha. That used to piss me off.  When I was LPO I had my guys come in at 6 to start maintenance because we would have  no interruptions.  We'd leave by 1.  Some coner divisions complained and the COB put a stop to it.  Said we had plenty of time during the work day to do maintenance.  Well when he orders clean up ship at 9 and made us put all the panels we removed for maintenance we would have to reset.  Well then he has another clean up ship after lunch.  And then we have to do the same thing.  So I told my guys ok fuck this.  We don't do anything until after 3.  Then our Eng would ask why RC div was leaving so late and our maintenance quality went down.  I explain to him why.  He says that's just an excuse.  

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5 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

Haha.  We ran vulcans and the eng and Co wanted to squeeze in one more drill set before the ORSE team came onboard.  So I was already up for 48 hours.  Cob decides he wants a field day so that's another 4 hours up.  Stay up for monitor evolutions, ORSE exam, and drills as the Reactor operator So now I'm up for about 96 hours with sleep where I can find it. Then I get selected to do an interview with the  ORSE RCA.  He asks the first question I answer it.  The second question was a rod drop and calculate what the new power level would be.  I punch the calculator and I kept hitting the 8 button.  He asks if I'm OK.  I said yeah, the reactor is fine.  I've been up for 96 hours and I really don't feel like dealing with this horse and pony show because I have watch in 2 hours so if he didn't mind I was gonna go to bed.  I got up and went to my rack.  Surprisingly he didn't say anything and said I answered all questions with exceptional responses.   

This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ gangly wrench. Just then, this little apprentice leaned over and said, “You can’t work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ wrench.” Well this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, “The Langstrom 7″ wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.” Just then, the little apprentice leaned over and said, “It says sprocket not socket!”

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2 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ gangly wrench. Just then, this little apprentice leaned over and said, “You can’t work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ wrench.” Well this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, “The Langstrom 7″ wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.” Just then, the little apprentice leaned over and said, “It says sprocket not socket!”

Can’t stop laughing.... 

this is only true if you’re facing port 

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@blacklab  did I ever tell you the story of us having to field day 4 hours a day for an entire month because SecDef Robert Gates was going to be in Hawaii when we pulled into port and there was a possibility he was going to visit.  The motherfuckers slips in ice in DC and breaks his shoulder so he never flew out.  That's 120 hours of cleaning x120 people. That's 14,400 man hours we will never get back

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10 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

@blacklab  did I ever tell you the story of us having to field day 4 hours a day for an entire month because SecDef Robert Gates was going to be in Hawaii when we pulled into port and there was a possibility he was going to visit.  The motherfuckers slips in ice in DC and breaks his shoulder so he never flew out.  That's 120 hours of cleaning x120 people. That's 14,400 man hours we will never get back

haha, that's great.

What drove me nuts was there were areas that really just didn't need cleaning. We were responsible for a forward part of the engine room which consisted of breakers and reactor control equipment. After about 15 minutes of dusting there's literally nothing left to clean, but by god there were 4 of us that needed to spend 4 hours in there cleaning.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The boy has decided to do it. I did my best to provide him all the information that I could without endorsing any decision. He goes to MEPS this Thursday. He won't ship until next summer. I am proud that he looked at everything. He has declined a few opportunities to speak with some football and wrestling programs (small schools, no full athletic scholarships but partial coupled with academic). He is pretty locked in on doing this.

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34 minutes ago, Bevo said:

What are the best Navy Jobs? My son is doing ROTC and is thinking about going to the Naval Academy.

If you go to the Academy, you don't find out your branch( your job) until the beginning of Senior year.

The better your grades and overall scoring, the more likely you end up where you want to be.

 

Your major of study is at your discretion however.

 

This site is extremely helpful across all of the academies. https://www.serviceacademyforums.com/index.php

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21 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Helicopter or Jet pilot ?

Probably not too many rotary wing naval aviators avoid the ships.  Same with turbojet.

Turboprops, on the other hand . . . .

There is this, however.

 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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