USNI News:
WASHINGTON NAVY YARD – The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program office has completed 3D modeling of its Flight III design upgrade and will spend 2018 testing major components of the new configuration, the program manager told USNI News.
Capt. Casey Moton said the program office has been working all year on Flight III detail design, with the most critical piece being the 3D modeling of the new design – a process that both builders, Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding, had to undertake separately. Both yards recently completed this process, meeting the long-standing December 2017 goal for this milestone, Moton told USNI News in a Dec. 14 interview.
The Flight III design revolves around the addition of the AN/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), with upgrades to the power and other systems to support the much more powerful radar. About 45 percent of the ship’s drawings zones were affected by the Flight III upgrade, Moton said.
With the 3D modeling complete, the two yards will now go through a “final functional design” effort before fabrication of the Flight III ships can start, to verify that the design changes in the upgrade didn’t unintentionally create any further system-level adjustments that need to be made – additional fire main requirements, for example. Moton said that should wrap up by May, just in time for Ingalls’ planned start of fabrication on its first Flight III hull, DDG-125…
