NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Intense and extended efforts by the command of naval aviation’s Fleet Readiness Centers have cut the time to get F/A-18 Hornet fighters out of maintenance and back to the flight line by half.

Those efforts are now are being used to do the same with other Navy aircraft, and to reduce the cost of those updates and maintenance, officials at the command said Aug. 3.

The series of reforms to accelerate the turn-around of aircraft were driven by the chronic shortfall of tactical planes, particularly fighter jets, a decade ago. The program also stemmed from the revised National Defense Strategy, which turned the military’s focus to the return of great power competition due to rising threats from China and Russia, Rear Adm. Joseph Hornbuckle, Fleet Readiness Centers commander, told a Navy League Sea-Air-Space 2021 briefing.

The initial effort was focused on the F/A-18, the key to the carrier air wings’ strike capabilities. By applying industry best practices, largely copied from the airlines, FRCs were able to cut the typical 120 to 150 day average turnaround time in half, said Roy Harris, the command’s executive director.

The command established an operations center that looked at all elements of FRC’s operations and prioritized allocation of resources, Harris said. A key element of the reforms was setting targets for the centers to meet important milestones in the repair and maintenance process and pushing the centers to meet those goals, Hornbuckle said.

One of its early achievements was meeting the chief of naval operations’ goal of putting 341 mission-capable Hornets on the flight line. The effort then turned to the EF-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft and now is extending to other Navy aircraft, including E-2C Hawkeyes and H-60 helicopters.

The reform efforts now are focusing not only on producing “mission-capable aircraft quicker, but also at the lowest possible cost,” Hornbuckle said. 

FRC operates nine readiness centers and 25 other tenant sites and employs nearly 22,000 individuals, Navy, civilians and contractors, Hornbuckle said. It annually works on 300 aircraft and 150,000 aviation components.

As with most naval systems, a major problem for FRC is fighting corrosion, which “can eat our lunch,” Harris said. They are working to collect data on the problem to find the most effective and efficient solutions.

National Harbor, Md. — The mission systems on the first MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a signals intelligence capability functioned well on the first test flight, a Navy official said.

The first MQ-4C equipped with Integrated Functional Capability-Four (IFC-4) made its first flight on July 29, mainly to test the aerodynamic characteristics of the new configuration. The test team, while evaluating such aspects as stability and control, also checked out the performance of the mission systems and sensors. The IFC Triton featured more antennas than the baseline IFC version.

“The sensors and systems are performing better than expected,” said Capt. Dan Mackin, the Navy’s Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems program manager, speaking Aug. 3 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo at National Harbor, Maryland.

The IFC-4 hardware and software configuration introduces a signals intelligence capability to the Triton. It will enable the Triton to become an integral part of the Navy’s Maritime Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting (MISR&T) transition plan. As such, it will eventually replace the Navy’s EP-3E Orion electronic reconnaissance aircraft beginning in the fall of 2023 when the first full orbit is established. The IFC-4 upgrade also includes the Minotaur mission system now used on the EP-3E.

Mackin said the Navy expects to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities during later upgrades. Other upgrades planned for 2025 include Wideband Tactical Targeting Network Technology, enhanced radar identification modes, protected satellite communications. M-Code and counter-electronic attack.

Upgrades planned for 2027-2028 include enhancements to enable the Triton to perform without access to the GPS and satellite communications. These include command from afloat units, more robust navigation and communications, increased power, among others.

Mackin said that when the IFC-4 configuration joins the fleet, the mission control centers will be modified with special compartmented intelligence facilities for protection of intelligence and its sources and methods.  

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is partnered with the U.S. Navy on the Triton program and has accelerated its acquisition of three MQ-4Cs to keep the production line going during the U.S. gap in production, said Doug Shaffer, Northrop Grumman’s’ Triton program manager.

Mackin said the RAAF Tritons will be in the IFC-4 configuration and will be identical to those of the U.S. Navy.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A top Navy air warfare official said Aug. 3 the service opposes the addition of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to the budget — which Congress wants to do this year as it done in many previous budgets — because the new buys would take the aircraft deep into the 2050s, when it would be no longer viable.

As they have done for years, lawmakers are once again seeking to add more F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to the Department of Defense’s budget to help close a gap in strike fighter capability. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2021 the Navy is opposed to this move, and the next day Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, director of the air warfare division (N98), said Gilday opposes it because the Navy doesn’t want fourth-generation fighters that many years into the future.

He pointed out that the last Super Hornet to be bought under this proposal would last 30 years, which “takes us out to 2055. There isn’t a lot of analysis out there that supports fourth-generation viability” that far into the future, Loiselle said.

Instead, the Navy is focused on continuing F-35 buys and managing the service lives for current Super Hornets, he said.

Additionally, Loiselle addressed what he described as incorrect interpretations that the Navy is reducing its F-35 program of record by decreasing the number of F-35s in an air wing to 14.

“Some interpreted that as a reduction in the program of record,” he said. “That is not the case. There has been no change to the program of record for the F-35.”

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Huntington Ingalls Industries announced Aug. 2 that it is making significant progress in the compartment and systems construction of the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVN 79).

Newport News Shipbuilding division recently eclipsed the 20% mark on compartment completion, turning over to the ship’s crew more than 500 of the total 2,615 spaces. It also has installed more than 8 million feet of cable — or more than 1,500 miles — of the approximately 10.5 million feet of cable on Kennedy.

The most recently completed spaces include berthing, machinery and electrical. This allows Sailors assigned to the pre-commissioning unit to continue training on the ship while final outfitting and testing progresses.

“We are pleased with the progress being made on Kennedy,” said Lucas Hicks, vice president of the Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) aircraft carrier programs. “We are in the very early stages of systems testing and look forward to successfully executing our work on equipment, systems and compartments that brings us closer to delivering the ship to the fleet.”

Kennedy is more than 80% complete overall and is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2024.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy is implementing a six-phase process to improve and standardize the development of autonomous unmanned systems, according to an official.

Pete Small, program manager for unmanned maritime systems (PMS 406) said Monday at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland, that this process “represents the future of autonomous capability.”

“From day one, we know these platforms need to be upgradeable and interoperable,” Small said, noting that the Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab (RAIL) was key to achieving that.

To accomplish this, the program starts with a “software factory” approach, where software is rapidly developed, tested, and certified for autonomous capabilities.

The second phase is “DevSecOps,” which are a set of automated software tools, services, and standards that allow programs to develop and deploy applications securely.

The third phase is peer groups, who identify autonomy gaps, requirements, and performance metrics.

The fourth phase is Common Control, which standardizes vehicle planning and control across platforms. That is followed by Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture, which standardizes autonomy interfaces.

The sixth phase involves making data available to support artificial intelligence and autonomy development.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — All hopes of prevailing in the next conflict, if and when it arises, hinge on seizing the advantage in information warfare, the Navy’s chief officer of that domain said Aug. 2 audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland. 

“Technologies that exist today are all about fusing together information faster,” said Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare. “Our data, our information, the use of artificial intelligence, robotics — the nation that harnesses that the best is going to have the advantage should we go to conflict. And I’m one of those guys who says we’re in conflict right now.”

Trussler then turned the floor over to Rear Adm. Gene Price, Vice Commander of Naval Information Forces, who described the roughly 11-year-old command as a place under which data from a host of communities is amalgamated.

“Information warfare is a combination of oceanography, meteorology, intelligence, electronic warfare, cryptology, cyber warfare, IT [information technology] — all these things — come together,” Price said. 

By integrating all of these disciplines as one, Price said, the Navy creates awareness, assured command and controlled integrated fires in the battlespace. 

“This is the heart and soul of what information warfare is all about – pushing [data] out to whoever needs it, whenever they need it, wherever it is,” Price said. “Our job is to make sure that the right weapon is in the right place at the right time.” 

Price cited AI/ML — artificial intelligence and machine learning — as a critical area that warrants attention. 

“It’s a data problem, a platform problem, a management problem,” Price said. 

Work on transferring data to AI/ML is ongoing, Price said. He also discussed continuing efforts in the field of LVC — live, virtual, constructive training. He noted that the aviation community has been involved in LVC for years, and that it should be incorporated more widely through all areas of training. The security benefits are tangible, he said. 

“If we go out and practice, we tip our hand to what we want to do,” Price said. “It’s readily apparent to information warfare that we have to have a way to train for the high-end fight in a way that the rates could do their thing without tipping off too much.” 

The capability is being managed mainly at the acquisition level, Price said, where a cross functional team with information forces is developing the command requirements and content necessary to make sure information is readily available in a controlled but usable environment. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to establish two MQ-25 squadrons to deploy detachments of the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling aircraft on board aircraft carriers. Later this year, the MQ-25A fleet replacement squadron will be established to train operators and maintainers for the Stingray.

The fleet replacement squadron, Unmanned Carrier-Launched Multi-Role Squadron 10 (VUQ-10) is slated for establishment on Oct. 1, 2021. It will be based at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California.

Speaking Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland, Capt. Chad Reed, the Navy’s program manager for Unmanned Carrier Aviation, said that the two fleet squadrons will be VUQ-11 and VUQ-12.

The VUQ squadrons will operate under the administrative control of commander, Airborne Command & Control Logistics Wing — also based at Point Mugu — which also controls the Navy’s E-2 battle management aircraft.

The two fleet VUQ squadrons will deploy detachments to the E-2 squadrons to operate the Stingrays. Each detachment will deploy with five MQ-25As.   

The Navy plans to procure 72 Stingrays. A Boeing-owned prototype, T1, is being test-flown by the company. Boeing is building four Engineering and Manufacturing aircraft, two ground test articles, and three system demonstration aircraft. The Navy is scheduled to receive it first production fleet MQ-25A in 2024. 

T1 made its first flight in September 2019, and first flew with an aerial refueling store in December 2020. On June 4, it made history as the first unmanned aircraft to pass fuel to an aircraft in flight.

“T1 has just been tremendous,” Reed said.

The MQ-25A will be the “first unmanned aircraft intended to connect with a manned aircraft,” he said.

Reed said he is looking forward to taking T1 and the ground control station to a carrier deck for the critical trials in handling control on the deck.

The MQ-25A is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability in 2025. 

Reed affirmed that there is “no requirement in the current plan for armament [for the MQ-25A], but in the future it certainly could [carry armament].”

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is a secondary mission for the Stingray.

Four aircraft carriers are being modified with Unmanned Aviation Warfare Centers (UAWC) to control the MQ-25 missions, Reed said, with four more in planning for the modification.

The MQ-25A and the control system are being integrated in the planning for the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The advances in shipbuilding technology and investments in facilities, training and tools is helping Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) — a Huntington Ingalls Industries (Booth 1323) sector — keep up with the demands of the present and prepare for the future, according to its president.

“We are busier than we have been in my 34 years [with NNS], said NNS President Jennifer Boykin, speaking to reporters Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland.

NNS currently is building or overhauling 34 ships, including 27 at the shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, and 14 elsewhere at other sites.

That capacity is enabled by new technology, including additive manufacturing, laser scanning, augmented reality, 5G shipyard connectivity and data analytics.

Boykin said NNS has the capability to use additive manufacturing to produce components of more than 600 pounds. The capability is awaiting certification from the U.S. Navy to use on its ships.

She also pointed out that the third Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future USS Enterprise (CVN 80), is the first aircraft carrier being built by workers using digital tablets.

With these new technologies, Boykin noted that “many refer to this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

NNS has invested $1.9 billion in physical plant infrastructure since 2016. Those funds have been devoted to submarine facility expansion, a joint manufacturing and assembly facility, a new 310-ton crane replacement, machine shops, foundry and steel fabrication improvements, new automation, and digital infrastructure throughout the shipyard.

NNS builds nuclear-powered ships including Ford-class aircraft carriers and — teamed with General Dynamics Electric Boat (Booth 1023) — Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines. NNS also conducts refueling and complex overhauls of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and depot-level maintenance and refueling of some Los Angeles-class attack submarines.

The shipyard is on track to deliver two Virginia-class submarines and re-deliver the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Helena to the fleet in 2021.

Asked about what would be needed in terms of shipyard investment to increase capacity to build three Virginia-class submarines per year if so funded, Boykin said significant investment across the submarine construction enterprise — including the supply chain — would be required.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy’s massive Large Scale Exercise 2021 kicks off this week and the sea service’s top officer said Monday the exercise represents a “path to the future” for the service.

It’s the “biggest exercise we’ve done in a generation,” and the Navy will benefit from its lessons for years to come, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said while speaking at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland.

The exercise will involve 25,000 sailors and Marines and will span 17 time zones in the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea. The exercise begins Aug. 3 and will finish on Aug. 16.

While the Navy plans to test warfighting concepts like it would with any exercise, one of the main purposes of the event is to put Sailors and Marines in a two-week live virtual constructive exercise, Gilday said.

“At an individual level, it allows sailors and combatant commanders” to experiment with warfighting concepts and generate lessons learned, he said.

“That’s the key to this,” he said. “It’s to take this warfighting concept, which is quite frankly going to be foundational to everything that we buy, everything we invest in, and it’s going to inform how we’re going to fight.”

The exercise provides a rare opportunity where service members can train together regardless of their role.

“We think this constructive training is really a path to the future for us,” Gilday said. “You can imagine that sailors and lieutenant commanders and their COs can conduct integrated training — air wing and submarines and surface ships and cyber units. Any time they want thousands of repetitions, we can learn from that, and bring back those lessons to how we fight.”

According to the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2020 “Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Strategic Outlook,” IUU fishing has replaced piracy as the leading global maritime security threat. Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) have sailed more than 500,000 nautical miles collecting valuable data about the marine environment for fisheries research, climate science, and ocean mapping. Now, a new class of Saildrone vehicles equipped with radar, 360-degree cameras, Automatic Identification System (AIS) and proprietary machine learning algorithms makes Saildrone a unique solution for combating IUU fishing, narcotics interdiction, and other maritime domain awareness (MDA) activities, anytime and in any ocean.

The Saildrone Voyager is a 33-foot sailboat-like vehicle predominantly powered by wind for propulsion and solar energy for electronics, communications, and navigation. With an average speed of up to five knots, the Saildrone Voyager can operate continuously in the open ocean for up to 180 days while producing a minimal carbon footprint. Saildrone USVs can be deployed and retrieved from any oceanside dock and transit autonomously to and from the operating area.

Global Fishing Watch uses a combination of publicly available AIS data and satellite imagery to expose areas of illegal fishing activity. The Voyager fuses optical data and machine learning to detect targets that are otherwise not transmitting their position in real time. These detection events are then fused with other data sources — AIS and acoustics — to deliver a fully informed picture of the surrounding maritime domain. Stationed strategically, a group of Voyagers can deliver 24/7/365 protection of marine assets.

Saildrone possesses the world’s largest data set of images of the open ocean. Tens of millions of images, collected by the Saildrone fleet deployed all over the world during more than six years of operational missions, have been annotated with human analysis highlighting anything of interest — vessels, birds, icebergs, etc. With this enormous data set, Saildrone’s ML model automatically recognizes objects in real time, providing unprecedented situational awareness to remote command centers.

In October 2020, Saildrone performed a successful 30-day demonstration of MDA capabilities for the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Hawaii. Each week highlighted a specific real-world use case for persistent MDA: general traffic monitoring, IUU fishing, search and patrol and port security. Additionally, Saildrone USVs can conduct long-duration intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions enabling narcotics interdictions.

Saildrone USVs also carry a robust payload of oceanographic and meteorological sensors for continuous high-resolution environmental monitoring above and below the sea surface. Optional sensors include an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), which can help to identify conditions in which a loitering vessel might drift into a protected area, and multibeam sonar for high-resolution ocean mapping, necessary for improving safety of navigation.

Data is transferred in real time via a secure satellite network. Saildrone data can be viewed in the proprietary Saildrone Mission Portal or linked directly into existing architecture, for example, Minotaur via an API interface. The Saildrone Mission Portal provides a variety of tools — overlays of satellite products, model GRIB files, and ingestion of other assets such as ships, buoys, tagged animals, or other autonomous platforms — for on-the-fly mission analysis and fleet management.

Saildrone USVs are rugged and have a proven track record of performing long-duration missions in remote areas and extreme conditions. The Saildrone fleet has logged more than 13,000 days at sea in some of the most extreme weather conditions on the planet. They have tracked fish in the North Sea, surveyed ocean eddies off Africa, air-sea heat transfer in the Gulf Stream and discovered a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. They have crossed the Atlantic Ocean in both directions, sailed up to the Arctic ice edge setting a northern latitude record for an autonomous vehicle of 75.49°N and survived Southern Ocean storms to circumnavigate Antarctica.

The robustness of the underlying core components, a wind-powered vehicle capable of long-duration missions and a machine learning-based approach to vessel detection, makes Saildrone an ideal solution for persistent maritime domain awareness in any ocean.