PENSACOLA, Fla. — The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Cypress was to return home to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida on April 12, following a 58-day patrol, during which it conducted training with Army special operations helicopters, the Coast Guard 8th District said in a release.

The 75-person crew departed to complete a three-week Tailored Ship’s Training Availability (TSTA) in Mayport, Florida, during which time the cutter’s material condition, administration and drills are assessed. During TSTA, the crew performed 110 drills with a 98.2% average score across all mission areas.

Following TSTA, Decisive became the first 210-foot cutter to conduct ship-helicopter operations with three Army H-6 helicopters, “Little Birds,” from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

The crew patrolled in support of the 7th Coast Guard District, focusing on protecting living marine resources through daily law-enforcement boarding of commercial fishing vessels along the southwest coast of Florida.

Decisive’s crew embarked a rescue-and-assistance team to a fishing vessel taking on water, the Miss Winnie, with three people onboard. The team stabilized the vessel.

ARLINGTON, Virginia — The chief of naval personnel (CNP) has been nominated by President Donald J. Trump for promotion to admiral and to become the next vice chief of naval operations (VCNO), Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan announced in an April 11 release.

If confirmed, Vice Adm. Robert P. Burke, deputy chief of naval operations for manpower, personnel, training and education, would follow his CNP predecessor, Adm. Bill Moran, as VCNO. Moran was nominated to serve as CNO.

Burke is a nuclear submariner who has served onboard USS Von Steuben (SSBN-632), USS Maryland (SSBN-738) and USS Bremerton (SSN-698), according to his official biography.

“He commanded USS Hampton (SSN-767) and later became commodore of Submarine Development Squadron 12. Burke was recognized by the United States Submarine League with the Jack Darby Award for Leadership in 2004 and the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership in 2005.

“His staff assignments include tours as an instructor and director for the Electrical Engineering Division at Naval Nuclear Power School, junior board member on the Pacific Fleet Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board, submarine officer community manager/nuclear officer program manager; senior Tactical Readiness Evaluation Team member at Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet; the deputy director for Operations, Strategy and Policy Directorate (J5) at United States Joint Forces Command; the division director, Submarine/Nuclear Power Distribution (PERS-42); and director, Joint and Fleet Operations, N3/N5, U.S. Fleet Forces Command,” according to the biography.

Burke’s assignments as a flag officer include deputy commander, U.S. 6th Fleet; director of operations (N3), U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa; commander, Submarine Group 8; and director, Military Personnel Plans and Policy (OPNAV N13). He assumed duties as the Navy’s 58th chief of naval personnel on May 27, 2016, serving “concurrently as the deputy chief of naval operations (manpower, personnel, training and education) (N1), responsible for the planning and programming of all manpower, personnel, training and education resources for the U.S. Navy.”

Burke, from Portage, Michigan, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Western Michigan University and the University of Central Florida, respectively.

ARLINTON, Virginia — Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan announced April 11 that President Trump has nominated Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran as the 32nd chief of naval operations.

If confirmed by the Senate, Moran would be the first naval aviator to become the Navy’s top officer since Adm. Jay L. Johnson was confirmed in 1996. Johnson served as CNO from 1996 until 2000. In the years since, there have been three surface warfare officers and then two submariners to serve as CNO, according to a release from the Navy.

Moran, a native of Newburg, New York, also would be the first CNO since Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, who served from 1967 to 1970, to have been a patrol plane pilot. Moorer flew PBY Catalina aircraft during World War II. Moran is a P-3 Orion pilot.

Moran served in Patrol Squadron 44 (VP-44) in Brunswick, Maine, and twice as an instructor pilot in VP-30 in Jacksonville, Florida. He commanded VP-46 and later Patrol Reconnaissance Wing Two in Hawaii. He also served on the staff of commander, Carrier Group 6 aboard USS Forrestal (CVA-59).

“As a flag officer, he has served as commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group; director, Air Warfare (N98) on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations; and most recently as the 57th chief of naval personnel,” according to his official biography. “Ashore, he served as executive assistant to the chief of naval operations; executive assistant to Commander, U.S. Pacific Command; deputy director, Navy staff; and assistant Washington placement officer and assistant flag officer detailer in the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Current CNO Adm. John M. Richardson said he is “thrilled with this announcement. Adm. Bill Moran is an amazing leader and good friend,” according to the Navy release. “He has been central to the Navy adopting a fighting stance in this Great Power Competition. As I turn over and go ashore, I will rest easy knowing that, pending confirmation, Adm. Moran has the watch.”

Moran graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981 and a master’s from the National War College in 2006.

ORLANDO, Florida — Coda Octopus Group Inc. reported in an April 11 announcement that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technology Office selected Northrop Grumman Corp. to prototype sensing capabilities using undersea organisms to assist in passively detecting and tracking undersea threats.

As part of the PALS program, Northrop Grumman will develop biological sensing hardware that has increased sensitivity for certain sensor modalities, achieving greater range. Artificial intelligence will be applied to observe patterns in the marine environment to help classify targets. Northrop Grumman is partnered with Coda Octopus, Duke University, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Memphis.

“The detection, classification and tracking of undersea objects is a critical military capability, and we are excited to work with DARPA to develop this next-generation approach,” said Mike Meaney, vice president of advanced missions for Northrop Grumman.

“We are delighted to further our partnership with Northrop Grumman on this important project for DARPA,” said Annmarie Gayle, CODA’s chairman and CEO.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Naval Air Systems Command has awarded a $3.2 billion multiyear procurement (MYP) contract to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. for 24 E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (AHE) carrier-based early warning aircraft.

The April 10 Defense Department contract announcement “provides for the procurement of 24 full-rate production Lots 7-11 E-2D AHE aircraft.”

The new deal is the second MYP contract awarded to Northrop Grumman, the command said in a release. The Navy awarded the first in 2014 for production of 25 E-2D AHE aircraft, and Congress later increased the number to 26 aircraft.

“This is a critical element in providing the next generation of world-class command-and-control aircraft to the fleet,” Capt. Keith Hash, E-2/C-2 Airborne Tactical Data Systems Program Office (PMA-231) program manager, said in the release.

“The use of the MYP contract allows a substantial savings over the use of single-year contracts and helps us fulfill our mission to increase U.S. naval power at sea by providing our fleet the information they need to accurately plan and win the fight today and tomorrow,” he said.

The savings for MYP II are projected to be $410.6 million, or 11 percent, over the five years of the contract, the release said. “The first MYP contract saved $586.6 million, a 13.9% savings compared to the cost of five single-year procurement contracts,” according to the release.

The E-2D is replacing the E-2C in the Navy’s nine fleet carrier airborne early warning squadrons, each of which is being equipped with five aircraft, an increase of one aircraft over the four E-2Cs that equip each the squadrons yet to make the transition. The fleet E-2 aircraft are based at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California, and Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

The Navy has a requirement for 75 E-2Ds. The service plans to purchase 24 in fiscal years 2020 through 2023. The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force also has ordered several E-2Ds.

The contract work is expected to be completed by August 2026.

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s air warfare director told Congress that some of the service’s experienced aviators are “ready” to leave the service, citing fewer flying opportunities and quality-of-life issues.

Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, testifying April 10 before the Seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited a Government Accountability Office report that said that Navy pilot shortage was 9% overall and 26% in first-tour aviators.

Conn said some of the shortages were tied to the grounding of T-45 jet trainers when the Navy was investigating oxygen system problems.

“We’re going to have to extend people in assignments or rotate people or, as squadrons are in the maintenance or basic phase [of training], maybe we don’t push those people to them,” Conn said.

“Some of the authorities you have given us, in terms of bonuses, the department head bonus, and the increase of rates, has had some impact across most types/models/series [of aircraft communities],” he said. “We have seen no impact in the [strike-fighter] community.”

Responding to a question about aviator accession from Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Conn said the Navy was “bringing in our goal.”

Retention is a concern, Conn noted.

“We’re seeing a lot of experienced [aviators] — some of our best — deciding to go to other things,” he said. “We’re in a competition for talent. The airlines are continuing to hire. Some of these folks are going to grad school. Some are starting their own businesses. The economy is doing well.”

He added: “It is a challenge that we have particularly at the more senior levels.”

The Navy has every departing pilot complete a survey. Conn said that three factors are the most influential in aviator departures: First, “not doing what they signed up for — they’re not flying enough, which means we need to get our readiness where it needs to be to get them in the air. Two: some quality-of-life issues, more so in our nonfleet concentration areas, [Naval Air Station] Lemoore being one of them. Three is the pay gap.”

The U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding plans and programs came under attack in the House Armed Services Committee on April 10, with concerns about the accelerated development of a new large surface combatant and unmanned vessels, early retirement of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and constant changes in long-term plans.

House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington) cited numerous failed or troubled ship programs while questioning new proposals, a retired Navy officer doubted the Navy had “a long-term vision” for its fleet and other committee members voiced concerns about meeting combatant commanders’ needs with a reduced carrier force.

Questions and concerns also came up about delays in building two amphibious warships, the badly aged strategic sealift fleet, the cybersecurity of the supply chain and the operational impact on the Marine Corps from the hurricane damage to two North Carolina installations.

Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson said that, with the need to balance requirements and limited resources, they prioritized modernization to meet rising peer competitors and were working more with industry to match desired requirements with what is achievable and affordable.

The plan to retire USS Truman at midlife was a “hard choice” made to allow investments in future technologies, they said. Those investments would suffer if Congress insisted on refueling Truman for another 25 years of service, which committee members indicated they would.

Challenged by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Virginia), a retired commander, that the frequent changes in the 30-year shipbuilding plan indicated a lack of vision, Richardson said, “yes, we have a long-term vision,” but the changes are “reflective of how much the security landscape has changed.” Spencer said the revised shipbuilding program “doesn’t bother me one bit” because it was necessary to adapt to changed conditions.

Smith, in his prepared opening statement, cited a long list of troubled Navy programs, including the planned new cruiser CG(X), which was canceled, the DDG-1000, which was cut from 21 to three ships, and the littoral combat ships (LCS), which were bought in blocks without firm requirements and have yet to be deployed with a full capability.

“I’m concerned that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past,” Smith said, listing Richardson’s “arbitrary” goal of starting construction on the new surface combatant by 2023 and the plan to buy 20 large unmanned vessels “without any requirements review, understanding of the concept of operations or how to employ weapons on unmanned vessels, including the application of the law of armed conflict.” Smith’s concerns about the unmanned vessels was echoed by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut), chairman of the Seapower subcommittee, who asked, “Are we getting ahead of our skis?”

Spencer told Courtney: “One of things you have charged us with is to go quicker, go smarter. … We think what we have is the smart way” to put the unmanned ships into the fleet, try them, break them and learn. Richardson said the Navy leaders do have a concept for the 20 unmanned ships. But, he said, “we have to learn how to use those to go forward,” which is why the ships are in research and development.

Spencer said the Navy is determined to work closer with industry to match capabilities with what can be produced and to adopt commercial best practices. On cybersecurity, he said the Navy is good at protecting its information but is demanding that its industrial suppliers do a better job of protecting data.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller said that despite the heavy damage inflicted by Hurricane Florence on Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point last year, the II Marine Expeditionary Force is operational but working in badly degraded conditions. He thanked Congress for reprograming $400 million to start repairs but warned that, without supplemental appropriations for the remaining $3 billion, readiness would suffer.

WASHINGTON — The Navy and Marine Corps’ strike fighter inventory shortfall is easing even as the Navy slows its aircraft procurement to pay some bills to improve readiness, the Navy’s director of air warfare told Congress.

Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, testifying April 10 before the Seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, responded to a question from Sen. Maize Hirono (D-Hawaii) as to why the Navy’s planned strike fighter procurement over the fiscal 2020 five-year Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) was 289, compared with 308 planned in the 2019 FYDP.

“Quite frankly, some of the reduction in aircraft [was] to pay bills,” Conn said, including getting “wholeness in some weapon systems.”

“F-35 C2D2 [Continuous Capability Development and Delivery strategy] Block 4 came with a bill that we had to pay,” he said, regarding the next phase of F-35 development.

“In terms of strike fighter inventory management, our lowest point based on PB20 [President’s Budget 2020] is about a 51-aircraft deficit in [fiscal 2020],” he said. “That decreases to single digits by FY24. That is [being accomplished] through the F/A-18 procurement in PB20, the F-35C procurement in PB20 and also the service-life modernization effort, taking those Block II [Super] Hornets, making them Block III, getting them to 10,000 hours.”

Conn said the Navy finally is in a position “of buying and producing more aircraft than we are burning up every year in terms of flight hours. That’s going to allow us to get out of older airplanes, provide best-of-breed opportunities for the Marine Corps, to enable us to start to strike some of our old airplanes, [such as] Block Is that will never be Block IIIs. It provides enormous opportunity in this budget request.”

Conn also credited a sustainment system introduced in January in bringing the “‘best of industry’ to look at the various functions we do to maintain our aircraft — at the depot level, at the squadron level, how we do engineering, how we do supply — and we’ve seen some pretty good results from targeted focus in [Naval Air Station] Lemoore, California, and FRC [Fleet Readiness Center] Southwest [in Naval Station North Island, California].

He said the Navy has been able to reduce planned maintenance intervals for Super Hornets from 120 days to 60 days.

“And the quality of product is better,” he said. “It’s getting on the flight schedule in a week, let alone weeks or months. We’ve been able to reduce our turnaround time 40% for some of our highest degrader list [items]: generators, interrogators and displays in cockpits. We’ve been able to drive down backlogs in servo cylinders that were keeping our aircraft down. We had a backlog of 60 of those parts in January. We got it down to zero in March. All that is allowing us to improve the mission-capable rate.”

Conn noted that in January the Navy had about 257 mission-capable Super Hornets. “Last week, we had a high — a snapshot in time — of 304. 80% would be 320 of the roughly 400 [primary mission aircraft inventory].”

SPRINGVILLE, Utah — IMSAR’s NSP-5 radar system, configured for unmanned aircraft systems, is in production to deliver mission kits to the RQ-21A Blackjack UAS operated by the U.S. Marine Corps, the company said in a release.

The payload project, named “Split Aces,” is a synthetic aperture/ground moving target Indicator Radar Payload and has been given the prototype designation AN/DPY-2().

The NSP-5 is powered by Ku-band NanoSAR synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology, which is housed in a pod with enclosed electronically scanned array antennas. The NSP-5 provides high-resolution SAR imagery, coherent change detection and ground moving target indication.

“IMSAR is excited to provide America’s defense with a genuinely tactical, high-performance radar solution enabling true multi-intelligence for expeditionary platforms at such a critical time,” said Ryan Smith, IMSAR’s president and CEO.

The NSP-5 delivers high-performance capabilities despite its small size, weight and power characteristics. Commercially, the NSP-5 is available in a standard pod configuration that measures 5.4 inches (13.7 centimeters) in diameter and 45.3 inches (115 centimeters) in length, weighs 16 pounds (7.3 kilograms) and consumes 150 watts of power.

ARLINGTON, Virginia — President Trump has formally nominated two generals to serve as the next chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In an April 9 announcement, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan said that Army Gen. Mark A. Milley had been nominated for “appointment to the rank of general and assignment as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Shanahan also said that Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten had been nominated for appointment to the rank of general and assignment as Joint Chiefs vice chairman.

Milley serves as the Army chief of staff. Hyten is commander of U.S. Strategic Command. If confirmed by the Senate, they would replace Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva as chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

Shanahan announced two other nominations:

Trump has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Eric M. Smith for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, and commanding general, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Smith serves as the commanding general, III Marine Expeditionary Force, and commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Japan, Okinawa. He would succeed Lt. Gen. David H. Berger, whose nomination to be the next commandant of the Marine Corps was announced March 27.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric T. Fick was nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as director, Joint Strike Fighter Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Fick serves as deputy director of the office. He would succeed Navy Vice Adm. Mathias W. Winter.