TAMPA, Fla. — The Coast Guard is considering purchasing commercial vessels to serve as stopgaps after the development of its fast response cutter stalled this year.
The new cutter program has been plagued by delays and the Coast Guard fears it may have potential design flaws, according to Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.
“I have a responsibility to my people to put new cutters in their hands, and I intend to do that,” he told reporters at the Coast Guard Innovation conference, sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association.
The fast response cutter is a key vessel in the Deepwater program, a 25-year, $24-billion effort to modernize and integrate the services’ air and sea assets. The overall program has run into several stumbling blocks, including the design of the fast response cutter and the funding of an unmanned aerial vehicle, the Eagle Eye, which also suffered a crash during a test flight earlier this year. Deepwater underwent a revision after 9/11 to take on new homeland security missions. The new requirements boosted the program’s cost from $17 billion to $24 billion.
The decision to purchase commercial “off-the-shelf” ships to serve as fast response cutters was made before the release of a Government Accountability Office report, which outlined the Coast Guard’s woes in attempting to use composite materials, rather than steel, to construct the hull, decks and bulkheads. Coast Guard engineers raised several concerns about the use of the unproven technology, which initiated a design review.
“The Coast Guard has spent approximately $26.7 million for design and test efforts on the FRC, although it has yet to produce a viable design,” the report said.
The Coast Guard is interested in using composite materials because they are thought to be lighter, and offer lower maintenance and lifecycle costs. The cutters were initially scheduled for delivery in 2018. The original plan called for the conversion of all 49 of the service’s 110-foot patrol boats into 123-foot patrol boats to serve as cutters until delivery of the FRC. However, that plan ran into snags as well, prompting the Coast Guard to move up delivery of the new cutter to 2008.
The accelerated schedule proved too aggressive, the report suggested, especially since the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have little experience designing large ships with composite materials.
If the design review fails to approve the plan to use composite materials, Allen said he would like to have a contract in place for a proven commercial off-the-shelf ship within one year. A request for information to potential contractors went out in April. How quickly and how many cutters could be delivered would depend on the manufacturer, he added.
Because composite materials don’t have a long track record on U.S. military ships, the report criticized the Coast Guard for not having a contingency plan in place in case designs fell short.
“While we validate whether or not a composite hull design will be the right platform for the Coast Guard, we have to face the fact that we have a significant gap in patrol boat hours to the tune of about 20,000 hours annually,” Allen said.
The fast response cutter, as its name suggests, is designed to respond quickly to emergencies or law enforcement missions. The 140-foot vessel will have a range of 4,230 nautical miles and move at speeds of up to 30 knots. Under the Deepwater roadmap, the service would acquire 58 ships.
The delays could hurt the overall Deepwater project, conceived as a “system-of-systems.” The service will have to rely on its “aging and deteriorating patrol boats,” the GAO said.
“Because of the schedule slippage and uncertainties associated with potential changes in the design and capabilities of the FRC, the Coast Guard has increased the risk associated with the system-of-systems concept,” the GAO said.
Stephen Flynn, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the credibility of the entire Deepwater program is at stake.
“The Coast Guard has got to get [the fast response cutter] fixed right, and soon if its going to maintain credibility and public support for recapitalization of the system overall,” he told National Defense. “This makes the challenge of selling a long-term acquisition program even more difficult.”
Meanwhile, the first of the largest new Coast Guard ships, the national security cutter, is nearing completion at the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems yard in Pascagoula, Miss., despite damage to the facility following Hurricane Katrina last year. Tentative plans call for it to be launched for testing in September. Delivery to the Coast Guard should take place in August 2007, according to Jim French, of Integrated Coast Guard Systems, the ship’s primary contractor.
The 418-foot security cutter is intended to be the flagship of the Deepwater fleet. With a range of 12,000 nautical miles and endurance periods of 60 days, the ship was designed with crew comfort in mind. More spacious bunking quarters, better dining facilities and an area devoted exclusively to exercise, were incorporated with input from rank-and-file Coast Guard personnel, French said.
The second and third national security cutters are also under construction in Mississippi. The Deepwater plan calls for a fleet of eight.
The delivery of the first national security cutter would be welcome news.
Deepwater “needs some successes,” Flynn said. “It hasn’t had one yet.”
With its legacy platforms deteriorating more quickly than anticipated, Deepwater needs to be on “fast forward,” instead of “limping along,” Flynn added.
However, one component of the national security cutter, the Eagle Eye UAV, is also being delayed as a result of budget cuts, according to Bob Ellithorpe, executive director of vertical UAV programs at Bell Helicopter, the primary contractor for the system.
The security cutter will optimally carry one helicopter and two Eagle Eyes. However, there will be a three-year gap between deployment of the cutter and delivery of the first drones in 2011.
While conducting an April test flight, an Eagle Eye crashed because of “engine power loss” following “fuel starvation,” Ellithorpe said. He declined to comment further pending a Federal Aviation Administration report.
The Eagle Eye, like the Marine’s V-22 Osprey troop carrier aircraft, is designed for vertical takeoff and landings, and to convert from rotary-wing to fixed-wing flight. They will also be deployed on Deepwater’s offshore patrol cutter. The service intends to purchase 45 Eagle Eyes. They will be used to gather over-the-horizon intelligence with a suite of cameras and sensors.
Until they are delivered, the security cutters will have to make do with the two manned helicopters, Allen said.
“That does not mean we won’t have a very effective national security cutter out there,” Allen said.
The flight deck is configured to accommodate different combinations of helicopters or vertical-takeoff drones. Optimally, it will carry one helicopter and two Eagle Eyes. Until they are delivered, the cutters will carry two helicopters, he said.