NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Laser Weapon System Demonstrator deployed on the U.S. Navy’s amphibious platform dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) has competed its first deployment as the Portland returned to its homeport of San Diego in March. 

Donna Howland, Northrop Grumman’s acting business development director for Directed Energy and program manager Laser Weapon System – Demonstrator, told Seapower April 6 the Navy said it was “able to exercise the high-energy laser in the 5th Fleet in December 2021.” 

The single LWSD was installed on Portland in October 2019 and was first lit-off in December 2019. The Portland deployed for the Indo-Pacific and Central Command areas of responsibility in August 2021. 

The 150-kilowatt LWSD is mounted on the superstructure of the Portland and is integrated with the ship’s combat information center, where a control console is installed. Northrop Grumman made the Tactical Laser Core Module of the system, while the U.S. government made the system’s energy and thermal storage modules.  

Northrop Grumman continues to provide test and sustainment support for the LWSD, for which it is under contract through fiscal 2022, Howland said, who noted that the company is working on a follow-on sustainment contract.  

During the deployment on the Portland, the LWSD was operated and maintained completely by Sailors. No company employees were on board to support the system. The company provided training on the system before the deployment and developed a three-volume operation and maintenance manual for Sailors to use on the ship, she said. 

Howland said the company is looking forward to working with the Office of Naval Research to provide next-generation directed energy systems.  

“We are excited about the MOSA [Modular Open System Architecture] that the Navy is looking at,” she said. “We really are a proponent of this as we believe it will improve the health of the supply chain and base to support directed energy as we move these systems from science fiction to science fact.”  

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A senior HII official said he is optimistic for the company’s future, despite the increasing price inflation of materials and the difficulties of attracting skilled labor. 

HII will “make the ships we deliver more effective and more protected” said the official, speaking on background to reporters at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland, as he addressed the challenges and concerns that also affect much of the shipbuilding industry.  

The official said price inflation is affecting long-lead materials, not so much for ships nearing completion but for newer-construction ships recently started or those for which long-lead materials have been ordered. He said locking in a price is essential to avoid delays. In some cases, the sequence of building a ship has to be changed to avoid slowdowns in the build cycle. 

The two-carrier procurement by the Navy for CVN 80 and CVN 81 allowed HII to lock in prices for materials for CVN 80; for CVN 81, the carrier is “not as exposed as it might have been” to price inflation. HII expects to lay the keel of CVN 80 this year and begin construction on CVN 81 as well. 

The official said the Navy’s fiscal 2023 budget made good steps in funding to support the supplier base and developing skilled workers. 

“Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” he said of suppliers who go out of business. 

The workforce may even be a tougher issue because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. HII never shut down during the pandemic, but some employees left the workforce and the number of applicants dropped significantly. 

The official said that HII needs to get “labor back in the yard.” 

The company is investing in developing talent and runs what it says is the premier apprentice school in the nation and perhaps the world. HII also is building shop facilities for high schools to attract students to skilled artisan programs.  

HII has found that many potential workers who “walk in” for jobs don’t last because they did not realize how hard shipbuilding is. The company found that for workers who have been in the yard for 18-20 months, if they stay another two years, their earnings go up significantly and they settle into a long career. 

Language also is less of a barrier for a prospective worker than might be presumed. HII instructs in both English and Spanish. The official said the company would love to hire more Mexicans with green cards and would welcome Ukrainian refugees to apply. 

CEO Appearance

“HII is well set up for the future,” said Christopher D. Kastner, who became president and CEO of Newport News-based HII March 1. He met briefly with reporters April 5 at Sea-Air-Space 2022.  

HII, the nation’s builder of aircraft carriers and co-builder of submarines, has a very deliberate strategy for the next five to eight years, with $40 billion worth of orders on the books and recent acquisition of Hydroid and Alion, with which the company has expended into unmanned systems, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning and sensors and anticipates growth of 7% to 9%. 

With the recent acquisition, HII is now the lead developer of the Minotaur mission system that will be fielded on more systems, and will expand more into intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance “on the edge” and counter-ISR as well. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — With all 36 planned MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopters delivered to the Navy, the manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, is looking at expanding the range of missions the Fire Scout could provide. 

Scott Weinpel, Northrop Grumman’s business development official for the Fire Scout program, said the company will continue to support MQ-8C deployments on littoral combat ships. He also is looking forward to the MQ-8C’s deployment on the Constellation-class guided-missile frigates; operation of the MQ-8C is included in the Capability Development Document for the frigate. 

Weinpel also said the Fire Scout may have a role in operating from shore sites under the Expeditionary Advance Base Operations concept, including in a logistics cargo role. 

Potential future roles for the MQ-8C include mine countermeasures and anti-submarine warfare. The Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis Block II, is the next-generation MCM sensor for the MQ-8C (the Block I is flown on the older MQ-8B version. 

A Bell 407 helicopter, acting as a surrogate for the MQ-8C, has demonstrated the capability to drop ASW G-size sonobuoys. Weinpel said the MQ-8C could be modified to carry an ASW torpedo, although carriage would result in some loss of endurance of the MQ-8C. The UAV also could monitor a sonobuoy field as an RF signal relay. 

The MQ-8C currently flies with the Brite Stat II electro-optical/infrared sensor turret, the ZPY-8 radar, and the Automatic Information System. 

Weinpel said the Navy so far has not indicated any plans to arm the MQ-8C, which has been tested to fire Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets.   

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Marine Corps expects the CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter to reach initial operational capability “in several months,” the Navy program manager said. 

Marine Col. Jack Perrin, the program manager, said that the first fleet CH-53K squadron, HMH-461, will have four CH-53Ks by the end of April, the minimum number needed to reach IOC and the number needed for a detachment to deploy with a Marine Expeditionary Unit. 

The first deployment of the CH-53K is set for 2024. The Corps plans to field 5.25 fleet HMH squadrons with CH-53Ks. Perrin said the “.25” is an extra four aircraft for one of the squadrons, with each of the other four squadrons to be equipped with 16 helicopters. Other CH-53Ks will be assigned to a fleet replacement squadron and test squadrons, while others will be in process through the maintenance pipeline. 

The Marine Corps’ eight HMH squadrons equipped with the older CH-53E in recent years have operated with only 12 helicopters instead of 16 because of attrition over the years. Three of these squadrons will be de-activated in the course of the commandant’s Force Design 2030 plan. 

The Marine Corps has a requirement for 200 CH-53Ks. Full-rate production is planned for 2023. Full operational capability is scheduled for 2029. 

In addition to the two low-rate initial production CH-53Ks delivered in October and February, there are seven in the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky production line in Stratford, Connecticut. Currently 46 aircraft ae under contract, including four for Israel. Long-lead materials are on order for another 14 CH-53Ks. Deliveries in 2022 will total four, followed by eight in 2023 and 16 in 2024. The production rate will reach two per month for the Marine Corps, plus one per month for foreign customers as needed. 

Israel is the only foreign customer for the King Stallion so far. Potential customers include Germany, the Republic of Korea, and Switzerland, plus others who have expressed interest. Germany plans to run a competition that is expected to occur in 2022. 

Perrin, who has flown more than 30 different types of aircraft, said the CH-53K, with its digital flight controls, is the easiest aircraft to fly in his experience. The stability afforded by the flight controls enables the CH-53K to easily land in a degraded visual environment such as dust cloud. It also makes aerial refueling more stable and reduces swaying of an external load. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy’s MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle is on track for initial operational capability with the new Integrated Functional Capability 4 (IFC-4) with a full orbit of four aircraft in fiscal 2023, a senior official said.  

Speaking April 4 to reporters in a roundtable at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo, Rear Adm. Brian Corey, program executive officer for Unmanned and Strike Weapons, said IFC-4, which began flight testing in February, will give the Triton — built by Northrop Grumman (Booth 1300, Dock Space 2) — the capabilities needed to reach IOC and begin to replace the EP-3E Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft. 

The Navy has had the MQ-4C with the baseline IFC-3 capability deployed in 2020 to the Western Pacific in an early operational capability. One aircraft assigned to Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP-19) remains deployed while a second has returned to the United States to give maintenance personnel more hands-on experience. 

Corey said with IFC-3 “the Navy was not ready to get the network right. We weren’t allowed to connect to the network. We’ve come a long way to an operationally relevant environment.” 

The number of planned regional orbits for the Triton originally was planned to be five, with four aircraft each. Beyond the first orbit, the future location and structure of the orbits is less defined and will be determined with regional combatant commander input.  

The Navy paused planned procurement of the MQ-4C for two years in 2021 and 2022, but the production line was sustained with an order of three Tritons for Australia and one for the U.S. Navy added in 2021 by Congress, followed by another congressional addition in 2022. The Navy has requested procurement of three Tritons for fiscal 2023. 

VUP-19, headquartered at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, moved its maintenance detachment to nearby Naval Station Mayport, Florida, last year from NAS Point Mugu, California. The future of Point Mugu as a future Triton base is yet to be determined. The second squadron, VUP-11, will be based at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, but the location of its Tritons there or at Point Mugu or elsewhere will be decided later. 

The EP-3E aircraft has a large crew of signals intelligence analysts, and the Triton IFC-4 represents a significant change in the analysis, with onboard processing largely replaced by a wide distribution of the intelligence information across many sites of the intelligence community, Corey said. 

Corey said the RQ-4A Global Hawk Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance — Demonstration aircraft which have supported the U.S. 5th Fleet since 2009, remain in service, with Congress having funded the BAMS-D for 2022 despite the Navy’s plan to divest it. The Navy again in the 2023 budget request targets the BAMS-D for retirement, with budget pressures overcoming the utility of the aircraft. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.— The Navy’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER) is tracking toward an initial operational capability of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, the Navy program manager said. 

The Northrop Grumman-built AGM-84G AARGM-ER is a growth of the baseline AARGM, the AGM-84E. The improved missile, built to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses, includes a new, larger airframe housing a new solid rocket motor, a new warhead, tail control surfaces and a new control actuation system for more maneuverability, increased range and improved survivability.  

The AARGM-ER is being developed to arm the F/A-8E/F Super Hornet strike fighter, the EA-18G electronic attack aircraft and the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter. 

Speaking April 4 to reporters at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland, Capt. Alex Dutko, the program manager, also said operational testing is continuing this year and is expected to be completed in fiscal 2023, with IOC slated for the fourth quarter. Full-rate production is planned for fiscal 2025.  

The AARGM-ER entered low-rate initial production during the fourth quarter of 2021, the first of two LRIP lots. The first developmental test flight was conducted in late fiscal 2021 followed by a second test flight in February 2022. A third developmental test flight will be scheduled before operational test begins. 

Doug Larratt, Northrop Grumman’s AARGM-ER program director, also briefing reporters, said the production of the baseline AARGM is winding down, with deliveries continuing through fiscal 2024 to support transition to the ER version. 

He said Northrop Grumman has delivered more than 11,400 AARGMs (including training missiles and spares) so far out of a program of record of 1,803 baseline AARGMs.   

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The return of great power competition, which some call a new Cold War, is a bull market for the antisubmarine warfare sonobuoy business.  

Sonobuoys — expendable floating sensors fitted with acoustic receivers, transmitters or both — are the primary antisubmarine warfare sensor of U.S. and NATO maritime patrol aircraft such as the P-8, P-3, and MH-60R. They are used to track submarines and provide locating positions for attack. 

Eric Webster, Ultra’s president of Sonobuoy Systems, told Seapower April 4 at Sea-Air Space 2022 that his company — allied in a joint venture, ERAPSCO, with Elbit’s Sparton sector — is producing 200,000 sonobuoys per year, a level approaching the number built annually during the mid-1980s in the midst of the Cold War, when U.S. Navy and allied ASW expended thousands of sonobuoys to track Soviet submarines. 

Last year, Ultra (Booth 327) “built more sonobuoys than ever before,” Webster said, noting the Navy may order more “above max quantity” of the current contract. He said the joint venture has built more than seven million sonobuoys for U.S. and international partners. 

The increased orders reflect efforts by the U.S. and allied and partner navies and air forces to increase their capabilities and capacity to counter the Russian and Chinese submarine threats. 

Ultra builds four types of sonobuoys and is developing the SSQ-125A version, which has a more powerful sound source than the SSQ-125 for transmission at submarines. Sonobuoys range in unit cost from $800 to less than $10,000, depending on type. 

Ultra, headquartered in London, bases its sonobuoy business in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company also produces receivers for signals from sonobuoys. The company is working to better interconnect its receivers with the broader network of platforms and sensors. 

“The future is about integrating data … to achieve a shorter kill chain,” Webster said.   

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Bell, a Textron company, is marketing its manned and unmanned tiltrotor aircraft to be the eventual replacements for the Navy’s MH-60R/S helicopters. 

Carl Forsling, Bell’s senior manager for military sales and strategy, told Seapower April 4 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo that the Bell tiltrotors would be ideal for implementation of the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations concept because of their speed, range and payload. 

The two tiltrotors are the versions of the unmanned Bell 247 Vigilant and the manned Bell 280 Valor.  

The Valor, currently offered as a replacement for the U.S. Army’s H-60 helicopters, is larger than the 247 and is designed to carry 8-12 passengers. It has two engines, one each at the wingtips driving a tiltrotor. Unlike those on the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, the engines do not pivot, simplifying the mechanics of the movement and reducing cost. The marinized Valor would have a pivoting wing like the V-22 for storage in a ship’s hangar. The aircraft would be hardened for electromagnetic protection and be marinized for corrosion control in the salt-water environment. It would assume the roles of the MH-60S, including plane guard, rescue, medical evacuation and logistics. 

The marinized unmanned Vigilant would replace the MH-60Rs on surface warships such as guided-missile destroyers. The folding rotors and pivoting wing would allow storage in a warships’ small helicopter hangars. The Vigilant could be used for roles including surveillance, antisubmarine warfare, precision strike and aerial refueling. 

With both aircraft replacing helicopters, the speed and range advantage would allow the tiltrotors to cover more area at a faster rate, Forsling said, while carrying heavier payloads.   

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy’s new CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotor carrier-onboard delivery aircraft’s capabilities have been a game-changer for medical evacuation from a carrier strike group, the Navy’s V-22 program official said. 

The CMV-22B, which is replacing the catapult-launched C-2A Greyhound COD aircraft in the fleet, takes off and lands vertically. It is less dependent on carrier launch-and-recover cycles and, therefore, more flexible in its ability to quickly launch from the aircraft carrier and carry a medical patient to facilities ashore. 

In addition to quicker launch capability, the range of the CMV-22B — which can be refueled in flight—give it an added ability to reach land-based medical facilities from farther out. 

Marine Col. Brian Taylor, the Navy’s V-22 program manager, speaking April 4 to reporters at a Naval Air Systems Command (Booth 947) briefing the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland, spoke of a medevac from the one of the two CMV-22B detachments from that have deployed on aircraft carriers to the Indo-Pacific region so far from Fleet Logistics Multimission Squadron 30 (VRM-30). A CVM-22B launched from the carrier with a medevac patient and was able to land in a helicopter landing pad at the naval hospital in Camp Foster, Okinawa, a feat that the C-2A would not have been able to accomplish. 

Taylor MV-22B integrated well with carrier operations. He also said the Marine Corps’ MV-22B Osprey has qualified to operate from the hospital ship USNS Mercy. 

The Osprey is operated by the U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy and by the Japanese Self-Defense Force. 

Taylor said the Osprey is expected to be in service through 2055. It reached initial operational capability in 2007. Under current contracts, production is expected to end in late 2024. The program office is focusing on sustainment and keeping the flow of parts and other resources necessary to keep the Osprey fleet operational through its service life. 

Last year the Marine Corps deactivated one MV-22B squadron — VMM-166 — as part of Commandant Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030 initiatives. Faced with the possibility of excess MV-22Bs in inventory, Taylor said his office is looking at inventory management of the fleet to develop a long-term plan, with an option that some Ospreys may be placed in storage, available as attrition aircraft. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Aerosonde unmanned aerial system has been deployed on a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer serving in the U.S. 7th Fleet, giving the Flight I/II DDG — which does not have the organic helicopter facilities of the Flight IIA and subsequent versions of the DDG — an organic aerial surveillance capability. 

Wayne Prender, Textron Systems’ vice president for Air Systems, told Seapower March 31 the DDG — which he was not at liberty to name — deployed with an Aerosonde system on board in March. The system is being operated under a contractor-owned/contractor-operated arrangement. 

Prender said a second DDG would deploy with an Aerosonde system later this year. He also said that for three years an Aerosonde system has been operational on board the Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary sea base ship USS Hershel “Woody” Williams in support of the U.S. 2nd Fleet. 

Prender said the deployments are “helping to set the calculus for real-world operations.” 

The Aerosonde can carry a variety of sensors including an electro-optical camera, an Automatic Information System receiver, and other special payloads. The UAS can perform wide-area search, expanding the search horizon of the host ship. The system is fully integrated into the ship’s combat information center.  

The UAS uses less fuel — about one pound per hour — than an MH-60 helicopter, which burns about 1,000 pounds per hour. The Aerosonde uses heavy fuel, the same fuel used by the ship’s turbines, so no provision for a different fuel is needed. 

An Aerosonde can be operated by a team of three contractor personnel. The fixed-wing version can be launched and recovered in Sea State 4 and is recovered by a net rigged on the host ship. A vertical takeoff and landing version, which carries a lighter payload but can be launched more quickly, will be deployed on a ship later this year.