A Popularity Wave For Careers At Sea
"The Canadian navy is on the verge of a major personnel shift, with a saturation of officers desperate to leave their posts ashore and move out to sea. But these are no ordinary sailors: they're the first wave of submarine engineers who will work on up to $250,000-a-year contracts, showing up at strange hours like 1 a.m."
Unfortunately for those not lucky enough to be selected for this pioneering project, your options are limited. You may want to take some time exploring other career fields that don't require constant hours in front of a computer screen or (much) use of outside GPS systems. You may want to consider a career in the education and/or healthcare sectors. You may simply want to go fishing in Alaska.
The article focuses on one aspect of the project and reviews it's success, I will however, touch briefly on what could be described as "harsh realities" involved with this project.
If you've ever travelled on a Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) submarine (which is unusual because I'm fairly certain that 99% of all Canadians have never been inside one), then you will be aware of the fact that they all look like Soviet submarines (i.e.: extremely large, very technologically advanced, completely unoriginal and boring). The submarine is essentially an underwater aircraft carrier for the RCN. A single submarine can launch a maximum of 4 aircraft. To refuel, they need to surface. If you're under water and want to surface...good luck. If a Canadian aircraft carrier is launched, it would not look unlike what the RCN has done with this project.
It's highly doubtful that Canadians have ever heard of the term "Skunk Works" before (if you haven't, think back to your grade 10 history class). The Skunk Works was a special research and development facility for Lockheed Martin (one of the world's largest defense contractors). Originally created in 1943 by Ben Rich and Jack Northrop, it was used as a place where employees could work on secretive government projects and complete them without interference from upper management. Skunk Works was abolished in 1992.
The Canadian Navy has brought it back to life. The Canadian Navy's Skunk Works specializes in the manufacture and flying of experimental aircraft, such as the CH-146 Griffon (also known as "The Flying Banana"). The Griffon is a marine version of Canada's Fighting Falcon fighter jet, but with a much lighter armament. It can be refueled underwater and its airframe is resistant to corrosion.
According to the article: " If a submarine leaked an aircraft over the water, it could stay underwater for several hours while its reactor heated its fuel rods to keep them from melting and made fresh water. The plane could then be refuelled and go back up."
This simply means that if a plane crashed at sea near a submarine and the plane's reactor melted down, the submarine's reactor would provide an endless supply of water to cool it.
" The RCN expects to receive its first new sub sometime in the next two years. By that time, about 100 Canadians are expected to be working for the navy at its new maritime innovation centre in Newport, Rhode Island. Each will earn between $80,000 and $250,000 a year."
This is a VERY attractive offer for many Canadians. The defence industry is a gold mine when you're lucky enough to get in. Only PhDs and Masters of Engineering are required to work on such projects, so you don't have to be someone with a Phd in Physics or the like. To put it into perspective, a typical Park Ranger makes approximately $40,000 annually. I'm pretty sure they don't have the option of building experimental aircraft.
Unfortunately for those who wish to work on this project (in Canada), it will be extremely difficult to secure the position. I would guess that the number of applicants could easily run into the thousands. The most likely people who will be selected are those with masters degrees or PhDs in engineering and physics. Even with a Phd in Astronomy, it's doubtful you will get selected.
Anecdotally, the employees are all extremely smart. I mean unbelievably smart. They're like robots (or all grown up kids). I suppose they will fit right in on board a sub. It is easily assumed that the majority of these geeks will be ex-military engineers who have no other career opportunities.
(I've been working on my resume for free, by the way...I'm pretty sure they won't be needing any more people)
It's not guaranteed that you'll end up as a submarine engineer though...you could just as easily end up as a submariner; an operator of the submarine, but not an engineer. A submariner's salary is not bad ($45K), but certainly a far cry from $250K. The article says that the average salary for engineers at General Dynamics is around $80k. They're all pretty happy in Rhode Island...but who wouldn't be? If you got accepted for this position, leave your current job and start planning on where you'll take your wife on your first date after college (or maybe even your honeymoon if you were lucky).
According to the article: "You will be working for a navy that is in the middle of an overhaul. The number of jobs is down. There are also 9,000 people who were laid off at Halifax when the Irving Shipbuilding went bankrupt. Those engineers will want to work somewhere else."
Based on my limited knowledge, this doesn't seem like much of a problem.
There are already 9,000 trained engineers walking around Canada. Why not use them? It seems like the most logical thing to do, unless we're expecting the number of submarines to continue increasing exponentially...as it does with every other military budget. In that case, we'll need some more engineers.
The article continues: "It won't just be the engineers who are working on the sub. There will also be 20 people to run the technology and research at this centre."
This is a serious problem (and it sounds like it's a real issue). There aren't enough trained engineers to handle all of their projects...not to mention adding 20 people for strategy and operational planning? In order for the project to work, those 20 have to have some very specific expertise in those areas. This leaves you with too many specialists and not enough generalists. Too many cooks spoil the soup.
Those 20 people in Rhode Island should be masters of something, not of everything. "I'm a business major, so I can handle whatever you need". Apparently not. This is the sort of thinking that makes me want to drink. It's setting them up for failure...and failure costs money. A lot of it.
While this project may not seem like anything to get worked up about, a close examination reveals that Canada wasted millions (if not billions) on acquiring the F-35 stealth fighter jets (click here for a more detailed analysis).
Conclusion:
This project is just another way Canada is proving that they wasted millions of dollars on the F-35 stealth fighter jets. This project would be similar to the F-35 program, except that we don't have a surplus of useless PhDs with 2 years of college education. This isn't about the money, it's about the principle. This isn't about failing to develop new ideas...it's about wasting your time on something completely unworkable, which will end up costing us all a lot more money.