PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Inside the high-roofed structure that was once a World War II aircraft factory, the structure is underway at the engineering site where generations of U. S. Navy sailors will be briefed on the construction site. The U. S. Navy is asking about how to operate the systems aboard the new Constellation-class frigate.
The Philadelphia shipyard, although no longer an active U. S. shipyard. The U. S. Navy still hosts the ground control and engineering sites for the service’s large and small surface fighters. The Navy’s corps of workers and sailors shares an open campus with designers and retailers, such as the headquarters of URBN, which owns clothing and lifestyle brands such as Urban Outfitters and Free People.
It is here, just yards from the Delaware River, that American sailors will be briefed for decades on the use of onboard systems before deploying at sea on the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the Zumwalt-class destroyers, soon the Constellation-class frigate (FFG-62), and the program now known as DDG(X).
“Ten years in the Navy, I served on destroyers, which we have here at the control site,” Lt. Christopher Girouard, the frigate program manager’s representative, told USNI News. “It took me until I got here to see what an effect Philadelphia had on me as a sailor. “
For the frigate program, recently under structure at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, the LBES site will live on a ship known to the local Navy workforce corps as 77 High, on the banks of the Delaware River, off New Jersey. In a past life, the structure of the naval aircraft factory that produced aircraft from 1917 until World War II.
“LBES is a set of tactical apparatus. . . means an onboard apparatus in a representative onboard architecture with a representative onboard environment,” Sean Brennan, director of research, development, testing and evaluation at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Philadelphia, told USNI News last month. Visit the site.
“It determines what we’re going to do and how we’re going to verify something. And then how are we going to provide it, how we want to set it up,” Brennan added.
While the LBES acts as a testbed to produce other versions of software configurations before moving to the fleet, the LBTS focuses on hardware, as a laboratory of other configurations to establish a definitive propulsion system.
The Constellation’s propulsion formula is a new configuration for the U. S. Navy. In the U. S. , with a combined fuel turbine and diesel-electric formula. The CODLAG propulsion formula takes a General Electric LM-2500 G4 and combines it with two MTU diesel engines to force the dispatch of an electric motor driving formula.
Navy officials cite LBES and LBTS sites in Philadelphia to show that the service is doing its due diligence to check systems early to make sure they are working properly. the apparatus on board the program before going out to sea.
According to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021, the Navy will need to complete the LBES site for the frigate before the chief shipment of the elegance delivers in 2026. The site will need to come with onboard apparatus for systems ranging from the main gearbox and propulsion system, to the power modules.
The frigate is designed primarily for anti-submarine warfare, to move quietly on the surface without direct mechanical connection to accessories, but generate force for a ship-wide force network. frigate FREMM, uses a configuration.
During 77 High’s excursion, Girouard, a former surface warfare officer who served on the Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, described the LBES sites in Philadelphia as an integral part of how sailors competently operate the fleet’s surface assets. around the world.
“I was sent several times to the [U. S. ] 5th Fleet and did engineering shifts. I was convinced that my device worked. When I got an order from the bridge that said, “Start all GTMs offline,” when we conducted torpedo escape maneuvers, I was going to work every time. I guess I didn’t know where the trust came from and the jobs that gave us confidence in her,” Girourd, outdoors. site for DDG(X), he told USNI News.
“So I came here and I saw where all those things came from, that the reason I knew those things were going to work was because those other people in this organization had been working ever since, well for DDGs, since at least 1989,” he continued. “For me, it’s kind of a private connection that I’ve found here, that the works we do are so connected to the sailor and can be so transparent, yet strong. It’s a base where you don’t make the paintings that someone put into it. So I guess that’s the way I see Philadelphia now in a different way than I’ve probably ever seen as a sailor, even though I’ve never been here.
Mallory Shelbourne is a reporter for USNI News. Previously, she worked in the military for Inside Defense and reported on politics for The Hill.
Follow @MalShelbourne