NEW ORLEANS — A company is marking the start of production of the Navy's newest hovercraft: a landing craft designed to haul vehicles, heavy equipment, and supplies over water and beaches.
Crews are currently making the aluminum hull for a test and training model of the "Ship to Shore Connector," Tom Williams, spokesman for Textron Systems New Orleans, said in an email Monday.
It's expected to be completed in 2017, with work on production models expected to start early next year, Williams wrote.
The contract, worth $212 million for designing and building the test craft and another $358 million if eight production craft are made by 2020, was announced in July 2012. The Navy ultimately plans to buy 72 production models, according to a Navy website about the craft.
The website said parent company Textron Inc. of New Orleans has subcontractors in at least five other states and the United Kingdom. U.S. subcontractors include Rolls-Royce Naval Marine of Indianapolis, Indiana. GE Avionics' Dowty Propellers, based in Gloucester, England, made the propellers in the current landing hovercraft.
"We are working with six locations of L-3," Williams wrote.
The Navy's chief for the landing craft program, Capt. Chris Mercer, and Textron Systems Marine & Land Systems senior vice president and general manager Tom Walmsley were speaking at Monday's ceremony.
Textron has been making the current amphibious landing craft for 20 years. Those are being fitted with new equipment to extend their lifespans, a process expected to continue into 2016.
The new craft, designed for 30 years of service, will fit in the well deck from which Navy amphibious ships launch the current LCACs, short for "Landing Craft, Air Cushion."
They will have bigger, more efficient engines; use composites rather than metal for many components and have much better command and control capability, Textron said in a news release. Better communication and computer systems will allow a smaller crew, the company said.
They'll be able to travel at the same speed — 35 knots over 2-foot waves — carrying 74 tons of cargo rather than the LCACs' 60 tons, Williams said.
Textron's major subcontractors also include L-3 Communications of Camden, New Jersey; GKN Aerospace of St Louis, Missouri; and Innovative Power Solutions of Eatontown, New Jersey, with others including Alcoa Defense of Farmington Hills, Michigan, and Moog of East Aurora, New York, according to the Navy.
