The Tower! NOT the Tower of London, but still something that causes a lot of apprehension in some folks.
Until recently, an integral part of submarine training. Obligatory and mandatory training for all those wishing to become submarine qualified. AND also training that those eight American female naval officers will have to participate in and PASS!
A "Submarine escape training facility"
A tower, filled with water, variously described as 100 foot [32 meters] or 200 foot high [64 meters], again, an integral part of submarine qualification, a tower used to practice the various maneuvers as would be used to escaped from a stricken submarine:
"The [tower] includes a fresh, chlorinated water column with [an] escape chamber . . . mounted at the base, through which students can conduct a fully representative escape cycle from 100 feet (30 m), closely replicating actions which would be required if forced to abandon a distressed submarine from depth."
A tower that for the potential submarine acts as a "filter mechanism"? ONLY those sailors with some degree of guts and the desire to complete the program can "pass through" the tower portion of the qualification course? This is intentional?
The Tower!
"A Submarine Escape Training Tower is part of a facility used for training submariners in methods of emergency escape from a disabled submarine. It is a tall cylinder filled with water with several entrances at varying depths each simulating an airlock in a submarine"
The Tower!
You enter a chamber at the base of the water-filled tower, the chamber is flooded, you hold your breath and ascend the water-filled column to the surface, exactly as you would as if you were escaping from a submerged sub on the bottom of the ocean:
"We entered this tower -- filled with water -- through a pressurized compartment at the base. We then were required to 'escape' -- swim upward, blowing bubbles the entire time to prevent lungs from exploding. It was designed to make us believe that one could actually escape from a wounded submarine."
At least until recently - - and this is not mentioned - - you enter the compartment at the base - - NAKED!! NAKED, COMPLETELY SO, IN YOUR "BIRTHDAY SUIT" AS YOU WERE WHEN YOU CAME OUT OF THE WOMB!!
Those female officers, U.S. Navy, will have to complete that portion of submarine school that is THE TOWER? I would assume so! Perhaps not naked however. This remains to be "seen"? Nakedness has been done away with for men also?
Read about the current chamber as used at Groton CT. for instruction, training, and practice for escaping from a "downed" sub:
"Navy’s New Escape Trainer Helps Submariners Avoid a Watery Grave"
The TOWER! You can get a rise out of it!!
coolbert.
You don't hold your breath (unless you want to over inflate your lungs) and you don't do it naked.(you wear a hooded inflatable life vest)
ReplyDeleteAs said before, you're not naked. You wear the inflated hooded vest called a Steinke Hood (named after inventor). You also wear a bathing suit in the trainer (none of the training/safety personnel want to see your junk). But the women aren't going to do this because it's use was discontinued in the late 80s/early 90s. By the time I went to Sub school in summer '93, it was discontinued. They then to a swimming pool based ascent trainer supposedly much safer.
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