New ELT to Maryland Qs

[DadofMM-ELT]

Yesterday son of DadofFutureNuke passed his ELT oral board and is on his way to the Maryland. Naturally, I have a few questions about just what that means.

1st - for those who don't know, Maryland has just begun a refueling over haul - so she's not going anywhere for a while. It's nice that our son will be not too far away for a couple years but...

How the heck do you get qualified? He thinks he'll be sent to another boat for a patrol but what happens then?

It seems to me from reading here that refueling can be either the easiest duty ever (stable home life), or horribly stressful from constant conflict with shipyard workers, etc.

Are there any long term career effects from being assigned to a refueling over haul at the very start of your Navy career?

And (if it's not classified) what do ELTs do once the reactor is offline and de-fuelled?

Thank you gentlemen - this site continues to be a fascinating supply of insights on what our son is up to. (And Mom of Son of DadofFutureNuke is secretly glad son will not be getting to participate in any of those famous port visits in Asia.)

Cheers

[HeavyD]

As a retired surface Nuke, I can't answer most of the questions about the boat.  However, as far as what he will do as an ELT, there is almost no difference.

Shutdown or critical, he will be doing samples, both primary (up to a certain point) and secondary, as well as Radcon (Radiological Controls) surveys. 

Quals in the yards, at least on surface ships, were handled with simulations, walk throughs, discussions and even underway periods on other carriers.  I imagine the process would not be much different for our submariner brothers.

Congrats to him and thanks to him for volunteering to serve his country!

[WorkingParty]

Congratulations for your son by the way. I'll be keeping a eye out for him when he arrives here to the Maryland.

Anyways, yes, he will most likely be sent to another boat for a couple months to complete as many of his quals as he can. He might have a month or two before then though, depending on when he shows up since we're about to shoot a couple of our new guys to another boat for a ride.

Now, refueling for us is about to get really stressful and busy. We have just started but now we're about to jump into bigger projects and start a lot of abnormal work.

As for long-term Career effects, I don't see much since he will still be new. Depending on how fast he qualifies, he may be able to start some college courses in a year.

AND to finally answer your last question: Stand watch.  For the most part. There may be some Radiological type jobs he may need to assist with, but after this initial surge of work (For a couple of months), the shipyard is *supposed* to be smooth. Up until we start reinstalling everything.

Hope this helps!

[RadconRacoon]

I was an ELT during a decom, which I would think is like half of an overhaul. Chemistry will be a very light workload for the majority of the time, but after the refuel it will be interesting and likely a lot of sampling to get everything balanced out again. The radcon will be the majority of the work. We did almost all of our own work and the shipyard did most of the setup.
He will have to go to another boat to qualify an at sea watch to get his dolphins and stuff, but should spend most of his time in the yards.
The workload isn't insanely high, but it completely depends on the shipyard as to how time intensive it will be. There will probably be times where he is done for the day by 10 in the morning and other times where he won't be done until the next day.
Being an ELT means there will be constant oversight from the shipyard and NR, so that will make things more nerve wracking, but it's a great chance to learn the perfect way to do the job well, which will help down the road.

[Marlin]

I was an ELT during a decom, which I would think is like half of an overhaul. Chemistry will be a very light workload for the majority of the time, but after the refuel it will be interesting and likely a lot of sampling to get everything balanced out again. The radcon will be the majority of the work. We did almost all of our own work and the shipyard did most of the setup.
He will have to go to another boat to qualify an at sea watch to get his dolphins and stuff, but should spend most of his time in the yards.
The workload isn't insanely high, but it completely depends on the shipyard as to how time intensive it will be. There will probably be times where he is done for the day by 10 in the morning and other times where he won't be done until the next day.
Being an ELT means there will be constant oversight from the shipyard and NR, so that will make things more nerve wracking, but it's a great chance to learn the perfect way to do the job well, which will help down the road.

Good points, I did one refit doing 100 hour work weeks for much of the 10 months (middle of the cold war we had higher priorities than the carriers in the yard) and a second where I had a life even playing rugby with the Hampton City Rugby club. The yard, the crew, and needs of the Navy will dictate the pace.

Yesterday son of DadofFutureNuke passed his ELT oral board and is on his way to the Maryland. Naturally, I have a few questions about just what that means.

1st - for those who don't know, Maryland has just begun a refueling over haul - so she's not going anywhere for a while. It's nice that our son will be not too far away for a couple years but...

How the heck do you get qualified? He thinks he'll be sent to another boat for a patrol but what happens then?

It seems to me from reading here that refueling can be either the easiest duty ever (stable home life), or horribly stressful from constant conflict with shipyard workers, etc.

Are there any long term career effects from being assigned to a refueling over haul at the very start of your Navy career?

And (if it's not classified) what do ELTs do once the reactor is offline and de-fuelled?

Thank you gentlemen - this site continues to be a fascinating supply of insights on what our son is up to. (And Mom of Son of DadofFutureNuke is secretly glad son will not be getting to participate in any of those famous port visits in Asia.)

Cheers

Thanks for keeping us up on your son and thanks for his service.

[withroaj]

My advice to a newly arrived ELT on SSBN 738 is to walk on over to SSBN 736 and ask their ELT's how life is going.  The 736 guys are on the tail end of the adventure the 738 guys are getting ready to start.  They have some "lessons learned" to share about NNSY and the shipyard experience.