Reporter's Notebook

Navy net-metering

I’ve just come back from a talk given by Chris Tindal, deputy director of renewable energy for the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and facilities — a man with a title so long it needs its own paragraph.

He said that Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif. has a geothermal power plant on the base that makes more electricity than it can use, so it sells some of its power back to the grid.  It’s a large-scale version of “net metering,” in which private homes with solar panels or other alternative energy sources can sell power back to their electricity providers.

Tindal said the Department of the Navy wants to recreate these kinds of arrangements at bases in other states, but each state has different regulations about who can sell power back to the grid and how much. It’ll be interesting to watch the federal government deal with the states as it tries to meet its mandate for cutting 30 percent of its energy usage by 2015.

Swag cruise

Got a little time before the next event this afternoon. Maybe you can take a spin through the show floor, see what the reps are setting out. Bigger room this year. Louder in here. Sounds like a casino with no one-armed bandits; a distant roar of voices is swallowed up by the thick carpet.

There’s a giant white gun; BAE Systems’ full-scale 57mm deck gun fielded aboard the Coast Guard cutter Bertholf and the Navy’s littoral combat ships. There’s a Mk 48 Advanced Capability torpedo at the Raytheon booth. There’s the 30mm gun carried aboard the San Antonio-class gators. There’s a dummy wearing body armor. There’s another one. There’s brightly lit conference room built inside an enormous sign for Otto Melara; it looks like a place for staff meetings aboard a spaceship. Lockheed Martin is doling out popcorn; those sly devils, you can smell it from across the room. There’s an enormous lighted General Dynamics illustration of DDG 1000; the caption reads: “Zumwalt: Absolutely real.”

Two million years of evolution should force your eyes to make contact with the other humans behind the display counters; etiquette dictates you should smile, introduce yourself, get the pitch. But there’s a stronger impulse at work here: tchotchkes. This is a swag cruise.

Too many plastic pens with logos. And the triangular pens in the velvet bags aren’t fooling you. Too many lanyards. Thousands of gray Raytheon tubes with posters of all the ships in the Navy. What am I going to do with a Bath Iron Works sticky-note pad? Take it anyway. Ooh, a Boeing can coolie – yes, please! What is this orange plastic thing with a logo for Naval Sea Systems Command? No idea. Better take two. A poster showing every ship in Military Sealift Command? I’m all about it. A plastic spray bottle of Northrop Grumman hand cleanser? Ehhh, gimme one. NECC’s comic books are all gone. Brochures, magazines, fliers. This is interesting, can you tell me more about this program? Oh, the guy who knows about that isn’t here. The guy who knows about things is never here.

Pad, pad pad. Huh, U.S. Maritime Administration, all the way back in the corner. All right. This bag is getting heavy.

Bertholf’s big brother

Northrop Grumman gets the prize this year for its collection of ship models on display downstairs, and one of them especially caught my eye: A gray-hulled version of the familiar Coast Guard National Security Cutter, augmented for foreign sales and dubbed the International Patrol Frigate.

Northrop’s model has a SPY-1F radar – a smaller-ship version of the Aegis sensors carried aboard U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers – and a much heavier weapons load than the base-model NSC. It carries a Mk 41 Vertical Launch Cell aft of the standard 57mm deck gun; a SeaRAM close-in weapons system on the superstructure above the flight deck; and Harpoon missile racks on the fantail. The International Patrol Frigate model does away with the Coast Guard’s stern boat deck, although it does still have pockets amidships on either side to launch and recover small boats. It also has the same combined-diesel-and-gas powerplant as the Coast Guard’s ship, which includes twin diesel engines and a single gas turbine.

Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell-Jones stressed there is no U.S. Navy requirement for a ‘roided-up national security cutter, but that “we’ve had some international interest for things that were not spec’ed by the Coast Guard.”

That’s one way of putting it

Assistant Chief of Naval Research Capt. Paul Essig had to pinch-hit for Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Nevin Carr earlier on the show floor; Carr sent his regrets because he’s dealing with a family emergency, Essig said.

He gave a standard PowerPoint about some of ONR’s programs and responsibilities. One of the ones to get underway this year is the Free Electron Laser, which officials consider a “game-changing” technology, if they can get it to work.

Essig’s favorite, he said, is the Navy’s electromagnetic rail gun:

“That’s just a really cool piece of metal going through the air at hypersonic speeds.”

Still flat as a table

ABOARD A SMALL TACTICAL CRAFT ON THE POTOMAC RIVER – In my own defense, I offered not to go this time. Senior photographer Rob Curtis and I got a ride from the Lockheed Martin crew yesterday in their Small Tactical Craft, aka COBRA, so I told LockMart spokesman Jim Gring it was fine if they took somebody else on this morning’s press trip instead of me. He insisted, so I went again.

The brief by Robby Harris, Lockheed’s director of advanced concepts, was much more formal for my distinguished compatriots from the elite Washington defense press corps. Harris took us through the boat’s external features before we climbed into the shock-absorbing SEAL seats in the aft crew section. Then, as the boat’s captain, Joe Schmitt, pushed up the throttles, we all crowded into the pilot compartment to observe the boat at speed.

Lockheed’s sales pitch for the COBRA is based on its sea-keeping; its half-catamaran, half Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull design means it doesn’t slam in rough seas, which LockMart says will provide a smoother ride for SEAL special operators and Marines.

As before, though, the weather just wasn’t cooperating – the Potomac was still as flat as a billiards table. “Remember!” Harris called over the engines. “Imagine, four, five-foot waves out here!”

Schmitt turned back from the controls: “I apologize,” he said. “I wish I had some weather. The river doesn’t do it justice.” He throttled back and pulled the COBRA into a wide turn in the middle of the channel. Then we made a high speed run toward National Harbor, and he slowed to take us through the channel to the dock. I idly pointed out the Freedom tied up in the distance at Alexandria.

“Hey, can we go take a look at it?” asked reporter Rebekah Gordon of Inside the Navy.

“You want to?” asked Harris. Along with the other representatives of Washington’s hard-nosed defense press corps, I nodded and grinned.

Schmitt had to keep the COBRA’s throttles down to stay within the speed limit for traffic under the Wilson Bridge, so we couldn’t make a blazing, white-wake pass by the Freedom. But when I told him I envied his office – at the helm of an experimental spec ops boat in the middle of the Potomac – over mine, he stood up from the controls and invited me to take over.

The COBRA’s helm is a foam-covered steering wheel not too different from the standard controls on a speedboat; it was jittering slightly, along with the rest of the boat, as the twin 800 horsepower diesels rumbled at low power. My career as pilot of the COBRA was aggressively undistinguished. I added a bit of left rudder to keep the craft lined up in the channel under the Wilson Bridge, as digital cameras began snapping in the cabin. Gordon took over after me for just a few moments, then Schmitt took back the conn to take us under the drawbridge span.

We approached the port side of the Freedom, which looked much the same as it had when I walked off the ship in Cleveland as it traveled from the shipyard in Marinette, Wis., to its temporary berth at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. One difference was that the ship’s port bridge wing – which it crunched against a wall in November in Canada’s Welland Canal – was repaired. There was a small crowd of people standing aft of the Rolling Airframe Missile Launcher, above the flight deck. I took out my BlackBerry and called my senior colleague, Defense News editor Vago Muradian, whose show this week is about the littoral combat ship.

“Hey, are you still on the Freedom? Where on the ship are you?”

“Yeah, why?” Muradian said, irked. I was interrupting his tour.

“I just wanted to see if you could see us,” I said. “We’re in the gray and black boat on the river right now, coming toward you.”

“Are you out on our port side? Oh – we’ve been admiring your boat,” Muradian said.

“We’ve been admiring yours,” I said.

“Mine’s bigger,” he said.

“Mine’s faster,” I said – although this is not true. The Freedom has reached at least 45 knots on trials, about 10 more than the COBRA can make. But when boaters get into an argument, tempers can become heated.

I let Muradian get back to his tour and Schmitt nosed our boat back south under the Beltway.

The view from the cockpit

Navy Capt. Wade Knudson gave an illuminating brief this morning on the show floor in which he talked about the many novel qualities of the F-35 Lightning II, the jet fighter that will become almost ubiquitous a decade from now in the U.S. and international armed services.

Knudson, deputy program executive officer for the F-35, began by talking about the how the fighters are built – in sections, by Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics – and then assembled by Lockheed in Texas. To preserve the jet’s “stealth” qualities, the pieces have to go together with absolute precision, Knudson said – “It’s not like with your older aircraft, where you could get your mechanic to crank ‘em down. With a stealth aircraft, hundredths of an inch matter.”

The first copy of the Navy’s F-35, designed to take off from aircraft carriers, will be delivered in August, Knudson said. It will fly for the first time in December.

Each version of the fighter – including those going to the Air Force and Marine Corps – will present pilots with a completely different experience from the jets they’ve been flying. The plane has sensors embedded in its structure that will feed video to the pilot’s helmet, where he or she also will see other important data. When a pilot looks left, right, back or even down through the floor, he’ll see video from that direction fed into his helmet.

“Darth Vader – it’s a helmet even he could be proud of,” Knudson said.

Surreal

I saw the Freedom this morning from the Wilson Bridge when I was driving to Sea Air Space; it came up at about 8 p.m. last night and went under the drawbridge. It’s strange to think that in November, I had to fly to Milwaukee to see the ship tied up on the lakefront. Now I can almost walk to it from my apartment in Alexandria.

Not just a job, a comic book adventure

Photo by Rob Curtis/Senior photographer

Navy Expeditionary Combat Command has a standard booth on the Sea Air Space killing show floor, where you can learn more about NECC and pick up an NECC pen for your show swag bag. But it also has what could be the coolest tchotchke of the show — a Marvel comic book in which the superheroes are Navy divers.

“Deep Down,” was commissioned by Navy Recruiting Command, said Lt. Cmdr. Susan Henson, an NECC spokeswoman, as part of a push to show kids the kinds of missions that are common for Navy divers. The book is dated 2008 but I’d never seen it before. The cover shows a diver from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1, helping to rescue the crew of a downed Portuguese research submarine.

Our hero is a diver with MDSU 1 on the verge of recovering a Civil War-era wreck when he and his team are brought back unexpectedly to the surface. The Portuguese sub is down across the Atlantic, we learn, and the quiet professionals of Navy diving are the only ones who can save the day. “Deep Down” could be the first time that the salvage ship Safeguard — one of the most important and least glamorous ships in the fleet — stars in an adventure story.

The Navy used a comic book in Japan to try to ease fears about the nuclear carrier George Washington, but I’ve never seen one in English before. How does it end? This may surprise you, but the Navy saves the day.

Not enough chop

Photo by Rob Curtis/Senior photographer

ABOARD A SMALL TACTICAL CRAFT ON THE POTOMAC RIVER – Navy Times photographer Rob Curtis wanted to know where the gear was – he usually shoots pictures of new flashlights or water bottles – but I told him I had more interesting things for him to photograph. There are several Navy and Coast Guard boats docked down on the river outside the Sea Air Space exposition, one of which is Lockheed Martin’s Small Tactical Craft, also known by its 1980s action-TV show name, COBRA. (Of course it’s an acronym: “Common Off-Board Reconfigurable Asset.”)

I was slated to take the press ride aboard the COBRA tomorrow morning, but I wanted to take advantage of Rob’s professional photo skills to shoot pictures of LockMart’s experimental boat, in case my highly amateur abilities didn’t prove up to the task. As we walked down to the river in a cold, misting rain, the COBRA was coming back from ferrying an earlier load of attendees down the river.

The COBRA is a 40-foot, twin-hull, twin-engine craft that LockMart hopes to sell to the Navy for use in the mission bay aboard the littoral combat ship Freedom. It looks like a catamaran pickup truck, with a small cab up front and a flat bed aft that can accept different accessories; today it’s fitted with a passenger cabin and six shock-absorbing seats, designed to carry SEAL special operators.

“That’s a pretty dangerous looking boat,” I said to Joseph Schmitt, the boat’s captain, when he and the other crew members climbed down onto the dock. “How fast can she go?”

More than 30 knots, he said, and the next thing I knew, Rob was standing aboard the COBRA in the crew compartment, shooting pictures, and then, so was I, talking with Schmitt and Robby Harris, director of advanced concepts for Lockheed Martin. The Lockheed guys had nothing going on, they said; would Rob and I like to take a spin? We rogered up.

Photo by Rob Curtis/Senior photographer

The twin six-cylinder diesels roared to life. We sat down in the crew cabin and Schmitt backed the COBRA straight back from the docks, then wheeled smartly left and nosed the boat down the short channel from the National Harbor inlet into the Potomac. The sky was oppressively gray and the rain was picking up; even the massive Wilson Bridge, which carries the Beltway from Virginia to Maryland, was just a blur in the near distance.

Harris explained that the COBRA is designed to ride smoothly even up to sea state 5 because it has a “semi-SWATH” design, borrowing elements from a catamaran and a ship with a Small Waterplane Area, Twin Hull. True enough, although the Potomac was calm, the COBRA rode dead-flat as we made our way out into the river.

Harris laughed that it was too bad the river was too level to demonstrate the COBRA’s sea-keeping. I suggested we do a few cork-screws and chop up the water, and then try to bump over it – a trick I saw aboard the Freedom.

“Hey, Joe!” he called over the engines to Schmitt, who was at the controls. Harris twirled his finger. “Let’s do a 360 and go over our wake!”

Schmitt cut the COBRA into a tight turn in the middle of the empty river channel. In a moment we were bound toward a dark path in the water left by the boat’s jets, but there was no sensation when we passed over it.

“This thing conceals its own wake, so I’ve got a helluva time trying to get it to rock,” he shouted. “You gotta chase boats to find some rough water!”

LockMart says the COBRA’s smooth ride is ideal for SEALs or geared-up Marines, who are accustomed to being abused in small boats that slam in heavy seas. The COBRA is designed not to slam, and although the waters on our trip didn’t make for a good trial, it didn’t. Instead it pitched gently up and down like a house boat.

Schmitt aimed the COBRA back at National Harbor and opened the throttles; the engines drowned out any possibility of conversation. The COBRA’s jets kicked up two white wakes in the river, and not long after, we were back in channel heading toward the dock. The hydraulic doors on the front of the boat opened for us to get out and we talked for a few more minutes in the mist.

I asked for the trip, so I suppose I can’t send Lockheed the bill for my dry cleaning.

The value of a pre-nup

Coast Guard Capt. Bruce Baffer, program manager for the lifesaving service’s surface acquisition programs, debuted a new phrase Monday to describe the Coast Guard’s ongoing reform of its ship-and-stuff buying: “the Deepwater divorce.”

The Coast Guard is taking back management of its portfolio of new ships and aircraft, but before it can it must resolve many thorny issues with its former life-partner, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, Baffer said.

“And as we all know with any divorce, it can be a painful process,” he said. “And it’s going to be harder the more offspring there are. And there are three offspring — [national security cutters] Bertholf, Waesche and Stratton. So a Vegas-style ‘quickie’ divorce isn’t going to be possible.”