>By order of the commanding officer [actually a highranking person on carriers, compared to little ships where COs can be realtively junior and low ranking], this reactor limit may be ignored during tactical situations.
Legend has it that every CO (3, i think i heard) to invoke "when tactical" exceptions have been fired in the following review. The only thing worse than crashing a billion dollar boat is damaging the publics trust in naval nuclear power : )
(And I understand why it's needed.)
For those who don’t have the picture in mind, the first DC-3’s fuel valve was next to the air inlet. One day the operator didn’t watch the refill (They didn’t have autostop valves at the time), the fuel overflowed into the inlet, which certainly mixed it studiously with the air and pulverized the whole into the cabin. Man, aviation was wild at its beginnings.