By Geoff Fein
General Dynamics [GD] wrapped up builder’s trials of its variant of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) earlier this week, putting the vessel through dozens of tests in preparation for acceptance trials and eventual delivery to the Navy before the end of the year.
“Acceptance trials and delivery are planned to complete by the end of the calendar year. We are looking forward to completion of further trials and ultimate delivery of the ship to the fleet,” Cmdr. Victor Chen, a Navy spokesman, told Defense Daily yesterday.
The trials, which completed Oct. 18, included more than 50 demonstration events that tested all of Independence‘s (LCS-2) systems in preparation for final inspection by the Navy before delivery, General Dynamics said.
Notable achievements during the trials included reaching a sustained speed of 44 knots during the required four-hour full-power run, with a top speed in excess of 45 knots, the company said.
Many of the test events were conducted in high sea-state and wind conditions in excess of 25 knots, General Dynamics added.
Despite the weather, the ship repeatedly reached speeds of over 45 knots with propulsion and ride-control systems operating in full automatic mode, proving the effectiveness of the control systems and the highly efficient and stable characteristics of the trimaran hull form. A series of high speed ahead and astern maneuvers in these sea state conditions proved the effectiveness of the ship’s four steerable water jets. During the repeated high-speed turns the ship demonstrated excellent agility and stability characteristics, the company said.
The ship’s flight deck remained stable despite sea state conditions and maneuvers.
Independence has had a few issues leading up to completion of builder’s trials. Most recently, the Navy reported that the ship suffered flooding in the jet drive room on Oct. 1 (Defense Daily, Oct.13).
In July, the company made repairs to a leak in one of the ship’s gas turbine shafts that occurred during previously attempted builder’s trials (Defense Daily, July 27).
Independence‘s open architecture computing infrastructure (called OPEN CI), a highly flexible information technology backbone that integrates the ship’s combat, damage control, engineering control, mission package and other onboard computing functions, also proved its effectiveness during the trials, General Dynamics said.
“The OPEN CI ‘any display, anywhere’ capability was extremely valuable in enabling the LCS-2 crew to electronically reconfigure the bridge area and, at long range, the Core Mission System successfully detected, engaged and eliminated a simulated cruise missile attack by a small, fast-moving jet aircraft,” the company said in a statement. “In addition, the LCS-2 crew was able to access detailed performance and operation data from the bridge while the ship was operating, thereby providing them with real-time insight as to how the ship systems were performing.”
OPEN CI, developed and integrated by a General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, allows “plug and play” integration of both the core systems and the LCS mission modules, the company said. It meets Navy open architecture requirements, strictly adheres to published industry standards and facilitates the integration of commercially available products, General Dynamics added.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works is the prime contractor for the company’s LCS–an all aluminum trimaran. Other team members include Mobile, Ala.-based shipbuilder Austal USA; BAE Systems; L-3 Communications [LLL]; Maritime Applied Physics Corp.; and Northrop Grumman [NOC] Electronic Systems.
The Navy is expected to issue a new draft request for proposal to both General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin [LMT] for a winner-take-all 2010 competition to initially build 10 LCS and provide combat systems for all future LCS builds. Those systems will become government furnished equipment (Defense Daily, Sept. 18).