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from the may-return-home-under-its-own-power-one-day dept.
El Reg reports:
The US Navy's most advanced ship yet, the $4.4bn stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, has had to be ignominiously towed through the Panama Canal after its engines failed yet again.
While cruising down the intercontinental waterway, the crew spotted water leaking from two of the four bearings that link the destroyer's advanced electric engines to its propeller drive shafts. Both engines locked up shortly afterwards, and the ship hit the side of the canal, causing some cosmetic damage.
[...] Repairs are expected to take at least ten days and may mean the ship doesn't get into its home port until next year.
This is the latest in a long litany of failures for the USS Zumwalt that have raised questions over the efficacy of the new class of ships. Originally the US planned a fleet of 32 of the advanced destroyers, but the eye-watering cost of the craft has since seen that cut to just three vessels.
[...] It's natural to get teething problems with a new design, particularly something as revolutionary as the USS Zumwalt. But the Navy has already decided to revert to an older class of destroyer for its fleet upgrade. It seems someone on the general staff actually read Arthur C Clarke's warning tale Superiority .
Previously: USS Zumwalt Breaks Down During Sea Trials
[Ed note. Superiority, linked above, is a science fiction classic; well worth reading.]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by WillR on Monday November 28 2016, @05:31PM
There was a plane crash some years ago where both engines on an airliner died just before landing, and it crashed short of the runway. There was a long chain of failures leading up to the accident - water present in the fuel (but it was within tolerances), it had been flying over Siberia on an exceptionally cold day, they made a long descent with near idle power so the engine oil was cool, then they increased power (and increased fuel flow) on the final approach. Ice in the super cold fuel accumulated in the fuel-to-oil heat exchangers faster than cold engine oil could melt it, clogging them up, and both engines starved.
Someone casually reading about it in the paper (or now, the news aggregator link-o-sphere) would get the impression that it was a total surprise to the people who design and fly airliners that it gets cold at high altitude (over Siberia, in the winter...)