Author Archives: Chuck Hill

Tiltrotor Aircraft for SAR May Be Closer Than You Think

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BellV280

Photo: Bell V-280 concept

We have talked about “Future Vertical Lift” (FVL) before. It’s a program to replace several helicopters, including the H-60, with advanced aircraft with much greater speed and range.

Defense News reports that while V-280 demonstrator is expected to fly in 2017, the Army, which has the lead, doesn’t expect to fund production until in the late 2020s with the aircraft coming on line in the 2030s. But the Bell/Lockheed team that is producing the V-280 Valor, believes that there is Air Force and Navy interest that could see initial operational capability by 2025.

Meanwhile, Aero News Network reports the UAE has decided to purchase three AW609 tiltrotors, for Search and Rescue, with an option for three more. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2019. These aircraft will have twice the speed and twice the range of the helicopters they replace (275 knot maximum speed and 750 nm range).

AW609

Photo: AW609 prototype

I can’t help but think these would be awfully useful in the Arctic, and wouldn’t it be nice, if when we launch on a long range recovery mission, we could have two tilt-rotors, instead of a helicopter and a fixed wing.

USCGC Muskeget Torpedoed, Lost with all Hands–Sept. 9,1942

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USCGCMuskeget(WAG-48)

Photo: USCGC Muskeget, seen here before conversion to a weather ship. http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/49/49048.htm

Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day and a friend and classmate sent me another reminder of the sacrifices Coasties have made in the past. It was a story about a ship lost with all hands, but it was not the Cutter Tampa, that most of us have heard about. It was a small, slow freighter built in 1923 and converted to a weather ship and transferred to the Coast Guard in 1942, USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48). Although mostly forgotten, sailing alone in U-boat infested waters, she took with her more Coasties than the Tampa, nine officers, 107 enlisted, plus a Public Health Service Officer and four US Weather Service employees.

The four Weather Service employees are to honored with presentation of purple hearts on 19 November. This will mark the first time Weather Service employees have received the purple heart. It also marks the long association between the Coast Guard and NOAA. Appropriately VAdm. Stosz, Deputy Commandant for Mission Support will be one of the speakers.

Venezuela Claims USCG Violates Their Air Space

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1280px-2010-06-11_Do228_Kustwacht_PH-CGC_EDDB_01

Photo: Do 228 of the Dutch Coast Guard at Berlin Schönefeld Airport. Photographer: “Wo st 01/Wikipedia”

We have a report that Venezuela is claiming a USCG aircraft violated their air space and further they suspect this may have had something to do with an upcoming election.

“Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said Sunday the Dash-8 aircraft flew out of Curacao, a Dutch island not far off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. He said that during a 30-minute period the plane twice entered Venezuelan airspace over the tiny archipelago of Los Monjes on Friday while performing what appeared to be a reconnaissance mission in the Gulf of Venezuela, which is also bounded by Colombia…he said the timing of the apparent maneuvers, as the country prepares for key legislative elections next month, was suspicious, recalling other U.S. military exercises that allegedly preceded a brief coup in 2002 against then President Hugo Chavez.”

Of course the USCG does not operate the Dash-8, but I suppose in the right circumstances an HC-144 might be mistaken for a Dash-8. The Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard which operates out of Curacao does operate Dash-8 aircraft, and they, like the USCG, make their aircraft with diagonal stripes as seen in the photo above.

This sort of misunderstanding is very unfortunate, because it impugns the motives of the Coast Guard. The USCG has worked effectively with Cuba, Russia, and China, and I am sure there are reasons to work with Venezuela as well, but this sort of thing gets in the way.

National Fleet Plan

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A friend of the blog, Leesea, recently pointed me to the recent update of the “National Fleet Plan,” which, despite its name, does not really talk about the entire US Fleet. It is really about the Coast Guard, and how it and the Navy will cooperate to “identify additional opportunities for increased commonality and interoperability.”

You can find it in the form of a pdf here.

I have reproduced the table of contents below. Mostly, it is what you would expect and/or hope would be included. There are potential areas of cooperation, current situation, where they hope to progress, and identification of responsible offices.

It really did not get interesting to me until it started talking about the Offshore Patrol Cutter (page 22-24 particularly).

There was one particular section that I thought might be of interest, the “Strategic Laydown” (page 54), which concerns sharing facilities, including ship homeports, with the Navy.

Plan of Action and Milestones
– Fiscal Year 2015: Process Organizational Change Request (OCR) for Coast Guard System Acquisition Integration Laboratory (CGSAIL) relocation to Navy Combat Systems Engineering Development Site (CSEDS).

– Fiscal Year 2015: Submit revised Strategic Laydown (SLD) request and OCR to homeport 3 X FRCs at Naval Base Guam to include Lessons Learned from maturing CG-7/OPNAV N51 MOA.

– Fiscal Year 2015: Process Organization Change Request to homeport 3 X Medium Endurance Cutters at Naval Station Pensacola.

– Continue to develop solutions to permanently station aviation assets at Naval Base Ventura County.

– Support feasibility studies to identify potential homeport locations for West Coast Offshore Patrol Cutters

I am planning on two follow-up posts, one about what they had to say about the OPC and one about the implications of homeporting Coast Guard ships at Navy Bases.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Section Page No.

1.  Preamble …………………………………………………. 9
2.  Purpose ………………………………………………….. 9
3.  National Fleet Plan Overview ……………………………….. 9
4.  Plan Progression and Oversight……………………………………………………… 10
5.  National Fleet Plan…………………………………………..………………………… 10
5.1.  Current and Evolving Operations……………………………10
5.2.  Integrated Logistics………………………………………….……………..……….. 12
5.3.  Training……………………………………………………………..………………… 15
5.4.  Maritime Security Cooperation…………………….……………………..………… 21
5.5.  Command, Control, Communications (C3) Systems……………….….………… 22
5.6.  Sensors………………………………………………………………………………… 25
5.7.  Weapon Systems…………………………………………………….……….……… 26
5.8.  Engineering Systems……………………………………………………….………… 28
5.9.  Platforms………………………………………………………………….…………… 29
5.10. Intelligence and Information Integration …………………. 34
6.  Programmatic Collaboration…………………………………………………………… 36
7.  Integrated Plan of Action and Milestones…………………………………..…….….. 36
8.  Navy-Coast Guard Memoranda of Understanding/Memoranda of Agreement…… 44
9.  Legal Authorities ……………………………………………….………………… 48
Chartered Commonality Working Groups:  Mission/Plan of Action and Milestones
Appendix A.  Permanent Joint Working Group…………………………………………… 50
Appendix B.  Small Boat Commonality Integrated Process Team …….. 51
Appendix C.  Naval Logistics Integration………………………………………………..… 52
Appendix D.  SSBN Transit Protection Systems…………………………………………. 53
Appendix E.  Strategic Laydown Working Group………………………………………… 54
Appendix F.  Arctic Working Group ……………………………….55
Appendix G.  Maritime Security Cooperation Council ………………… 56
Glossary……………………………………………………………………………………… 57

“Progress Slowed by Age”–Seapower Magazine

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The Navy League’s “Seapower” magazine has an article about how aging assets are impacting the Coast Guard’s mission effectiveness. You can read it on line here. (You will probably have to expand it to make it readable.)

Frankly, I have been disappointed that they had not been talking about this much earlier. There has been entirely too much happy talk about how great the new assets are without much discussion of the general decrepitude of most of the fleet. Of course this has probably been our own fault. Even in this article, there seems to be little sense of urgency.  The article barely mentions the fact that the planned slow motion replacement of Medium Endurance Cutters by the Offshore Patrol Cutter will prolong the pain. After all, we don’t expect the last OPC until 2034, a fact not mentioned in the article. They refer to a “two-plus decade program” to build 91 new surface ship, but in fact the first National Security Cutter was funded in FY2001, and the roots of the program go back further still, so this is at least a three and a half decade program, that was begun at least ten years after it should have.

Stern Launch System Innovation

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In order to diversify their product portfolio, and with this keep ahead of the competition, the company of Global Davit decided to collaborate with the Dutch company TBV Marine Systems, part of High-tech Solutions & Design B.V. This company is in the process of developing, manufacturing and implementing of stern Launch and Recovery Systems (L.A.R.S.) which can launch and recover the bigger Fast Rescue Crafts (FRCs). This system can be used in higher Sea States, so in waves up to 2.25 meters.

Photo: “The stern Launch and Recovery Systems (L.A.R.S.) can launch and recover the bigger Fast Rescue Crafts (FRCs). This system can be used in higher Sea States, so in waves up to 2.25 meters.”

Navy Recognition reports a innovation in stern launch system that has resulted from the cooperative effort of German company Global Davit GmbH and Dutch company TBV Marine Systems.