Textron [TXT] hopes to begin full-rate production of the Marine Corps’ new landing-craft air cushion (LCAC) and begin testing the first ship-to-shore connector (SSC) before the end of the year.
Textron officials expect the Marine Corps to issue a request for proposals for full-rate production (FRP) of the SSC this year, Thomas Walmsley, senior vice president and general manager of Textron Marine and Land Systems, said Wednesday at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium in Arlington, Va.
Textron is under a $213 million contract to build the first four SSCs. An option for five more is expected be awarded sole source to the company before April.
The first SSC, designated LCAC 100 – the Navy retained the landing craft-air cushioned designation – started at Textron’s New Orleans manufacturing facility in November and is now 27 percent complete. That LCAC is the test and trial vessel that will be tested for 240 hours before delivery and another 240 hours after the Navy takes possession.
Increasing reliability and reduced maintenance cost were both priorities in designing the SSC.
“To put that in context, an existing LCAC operates between 100 and 120 hours a year, so it gives you essentially four years of effort in terms of those two testing programs to validate the reliability,” Tom Rivers, amphibious warfare program manager for Naval Sea Systems Command, said at SNA.
The first operational LCAC, designated 101, is about 16 percent complete, according to Textron. It should be delivered in 2017, but will undergo the first 240 hours of reliability testing first. LCAC 100 should begin those trials before the end of the year, Walmsley said.
The New Orleans manufacturing plant is the same one used to build legacy LCACs. It was used for armored vehicle welding and limited LCAC SLEP work prior to the SSC program. It has since been heavily automated as part of a $45 million capital investment program the company began in anticipation of SSC and other amphibious craft programs like the Navy’s landing craft utility (LCU) and the Army’s maneuver support vessel light (MSV-L), Walmsley said.
Textron’s facility was designed to produce up to 12 LCACs a year. The company achieved a production rate of 10 per year with the legacy craft but will be able to build at least two more following the investments in automation and precision tooling, he said. Reaching peak production will entail “substantially more hiring from where we are today.”
Legacy LCACs, of which the Marine Corps has 72, were designed with a 20-year service life.
The 53 out of the 72-vessel LCAC fleet already has undergone a service extension (SLEP) to add another 10 years to the craft’s 20-year intended operational service life. Ten LCACs are currently being upgraded.
Because SSC will not enter service until after the SLEP, some of the LCACs will undergo further refits to extend their service lives another five years and maintain a fleet of 73, Rivers said. The first so-called post-SLEP craft were completed last year, Rivers said. Another four LCACs will undergo the refits this year, he said.
As they come online, the SSC will replace legacy LCACs on a one-to-one basis with increased payload capacity, propulsion and fuel efficiency.
SSC uses the same Rolls Royce engine that powers the V-22 Osprey, also built by Textron’s Bell Helicopter. The SSC incorporates four of the engines – two on either side spinning a drive shaft that provides power to the lift fans, propulsion fans and the bow thrusters. The increased power and fuel efficiency of the new engine allowed for elimination of two lift fans on the SSC.
“We really focused on the propulsion system,” Rivers said. “The existing LCAC has eight gear boxes where the SSC has two. We tried to streamline systems as much as possible.”
Whereas the legacy LCAC has four gear boxes per side for a total of eight, the replacement craft has just one per side.
“This will be a substantially better, more reliable craft as well as cheaper on the operational side – smaller crew, better fuel efficiency, even though there is substantially more horsepower in the modern engines,” Walmsley said. “Really you’re taking a great product and making it a lot more reliable and sustainable with modern technology.
The new LCACs will carry 74 tons of vehicles, equipment or personnel at 35 knots launching from an amphibious ship 25 nautical miles from shore. It will operate in seas up to seas state three, which is four-foot waves. In practical terms, the vessel can carry an M1 Abrams tank equipped with a mine plow from ship to shore without operating in overdrive mode, which would be necessary in a legacy LCAC.
The “flight” crew has been whittled from three to two – a pilot and co-pilot. Controls that used to resemble an aircraft pedals and yolk have been replaced with fly-by-wire sidesticks similar to those used in advanced aircraft cockpits.