Industry Adapts Outdoor Gear Technology to Flight Clothing

By RICHARD R. BURGESS
Managing Editor

Military adaptation of civilian technology is nothing new. Most well known is the adoption of private-sector computers and related information technology. Less well known is the military interest in outdoor sports attire and gear.

The Navy now is fielding new multilayered flight garments with its aviation personnel thanks to a joint effort by several companies in working with the Naval Air Warfare Center. The new flight gear reflects technology developed for and already in use by mountain-climbing enthusiasts.

The Multi-Climate Protection System (MCPS) is a set of four lightweight water-repellent multilayered garments that can be worn with flight suits and aviation gear and protect against fire, wind, rain and snow. The inner and outer layers can be worn as desired according to the environment. A g-suit — an inflatable garment that prevents blackout during extreme maneuvers — can be worn over all four layers of the MCPS.

The MCPS was developed by a consortium of companies working together in a noncontractual agreement. The consortium includes DuPont’s Advanced Fibers Systems plant in Richmond, Va.; Malden Mills Industries of Lawrence, Mass.; and W.L. Gore & Associates, Newark, Del.

All of the garments include Nomex, developed by Dupont and used in flight suits and gloves for more than three decades. According to David Martin, head of Dupont’s Nomex military applications and development unit, the fiber’s “inherent flame resistance … cannot be washed out or worn out.”

Martin said that, in laboratory testing, Nomex withstood a 12,000-degree fireball for 60 seconds without causing severe burn injuries.

Monty Nagy, head of Dupont’s military marketing segment, told Sea Power that the MCPS is a way of “taking mountain-climbing gear to the warrior of today, right on the cutting edge.” He said the garments are designed to take into account free movement in the joints and avoid encumbrance caused by thick fabric, to keep a flier from “looking like the Michelin man.”

Tara Capecci, the Naval Air Systems Command’s project manager for MCPS, said that the MCPS was tested in laboratory conditions in fiscal year 2003 and was tested during the winter of 2003-04 in the fleet by aircrews at five Navy and Marine Corps air stations.

Capecci said the MCPS is maximized for comfort because it is made from knit instead of woven fabric. Also, for the first time, flight gear would be available in a full range of sizes for women.

The Navy will be fielding the MCPS in large quantities beginning in fall 2004, the fruit of $3.1 million in procurement funds allocated in fiscal year 2004. The Navy has requested $3.5 million for fiscal year 2005 procurement. Capecci estimated that the program value might total about $30 million.

Helicopter rescue units are the first scheduled to receive the MCPS, Martin said.

Capecci said various MCPS garments also would be entering service with the Marine Corps, Air Force, Army, Coast Guard and U.S. Forest Service. Prototypes of the MCPS have been used by special operations forces and have been so popular, Martin said, “they refused to turn it back in.”

Defense Industry Notes

§ Raytheon has been awarded a $29.4 million follow-on contract from Electric Boat Corp. to build submarine high-data-rate (Sub HDR) multiband satellite communication systems for the Virginia-class attack submarines. The Sub HDR allows submarines to rapidly transmit and receive voice, data and imagery through a mast-mounted antenna while operating at periscope depth. Raytheon already has delivered more than 50 Sub HDR systems under contracts worth more than $160 million.

§ Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., is developing a new variant — the Block II — of the combat-proven AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). The new version will include a unitary 500-pound warhead and an improved Global Positioning System receiver. Improved manufacturing processes and reduced parts count are expected to reduce the unit cost of the JSOW. The company — under contract to the Naval Air Systems Command — expects to complete development of the Block II by early 2006.

§ Boeing has demonstrated the ability of one ground controller simultaneously to pilot two X-45A technology demonstrators for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System. The two X-45As took off in succession Aug. 2 from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., joined up and flew predetermined flight paths in formation, maintaining their relative positions and returned to base safely, landing on a common runway and taxiing to the shutdown apron.

§ The Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbine engine has completed Navy-required endurance testing for certification by the American Bureau of Shipping. The MT30 has been selected for initial production units of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship and the engineering demonstrator model of the DD(X), the next-generation destroyer.

§ General Atomics deployed its Mariner Demonstrator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to Alaska in July in support of the Coast Guard’s medium-altitude long-endurance UAV concept-of-operations development tests. The Mariner is a variant of the Predator B UAV modified with the fuselage of an Altair UAV and an 86-foot wingspan. The Mariner is equipped with a maritime surveillance radar pod, television and infrared cameras, and a Coast Guard-developed Automatic Identification System.

§ GE Transportation, Evendale, Ohio, has received Navy certification for its LM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbine engine for mechanical drive applications. The LM2500+ is now approved for use on board the eighth Wasp-class amphibious assault ship (LHD) being built by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. LHD 8, unlike its steam-powered sister ships, will be powered by gas turbines.