Talk:Machinist Mate

Disambiguate Ship's Screw
The word, "screw" used in the article needs to go through a disambiguation process, but I don't know how to do that, and, anyway, it would grate on me if I linked it to a page that talks about a ships "propellors." Aircraft have propellors; ships have screws. The rotating metal object that is located below the water line and propels the ship by means of its blades slicing through the water is a screw, so named because it functions like a wood screw biting its way into a piece of wood. A propellor generally is a device that functions on Bernoulli's principle of reduced fluid pressure above a curved surface in a moving fluid flow. One reason the difference is important is that a screw usually is designed to prevent significant drops in fluid pressure, because this can lead to a phase change in the fluid, a destructive and noisy event that is called cavitation. Propellor designers don't have to concern themselves with cavitation because air isn't likely to change phase from the motion of a propellor. Pooua 18:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Should the Term "Engineering Division" Be a Separate Wiki Entry?
Although I provide some definition of the term, "Engineering Division," I could see reason for creating a seperate Wikipedia entry for the term. Pooua 18:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Change to Machinist Mate Rating
The structure of the Machinist Mate rating has change significantly since my time in the service. When I was in MM Class "A" school, all MMs went through the same school in Great Lakes, Il. Nuclear Propulsion Candidates, of which I was one, had to maintain a score in the top 10% of the class, which actually meant keeping an average grade above 90%. Waivers were available down to 88%. Those whose final scores were too low were sent to the conventional fleet. Now that the rating has been merged with Boiler Techs and divided into separate groups, the cutoffs may have changed, and the consequences to Nucs who get a lower score may have changed. It would certainly be a blow to someone who had signed on to work on nuclear reactors to find himself cleaning boiler stacks! Pooua 18:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)