Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center (MARMC) engineers hosted Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Newport Division engineers as they trained Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) Washington (SSN 787) Sailors on a Towed Array Handling System Feb. 29 - March 3.

Sailors assigned to PCU Washington, a Virginia-class submarine, are stationed in Newport News, Va., while Washington is being built at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS).

"We started offering training for Virginia-class submarines five or six years ago," said NUWC Newport Mechanical Engineer Charles Gray. "At the time, there was no one offering this type of training so we invited people to our land-based test facility in Newport, Rhode Island, and began training there. We developed OA-9070E Towed Handling System simulators and word got out that NUWC had the expertise to provide requisite training."

Today, NUWC Newport engineers offer training in Newport, Norfolk and Hawaii. Depending on the location of Sailors in need of training, it can be more cost effective for NUWC engineers to come to Norfolk or go to Hawaii.

"We work closely with NUWC," said MARMC Towed System Branch Manager Pamela Schools. "We do a lot of engineering design work with them, creating Engineering Change Proposals and Engineering Change Instructions. We teamed up with them this week by offering them training facilities here, and in return, they allow our Sailors, junior engineers and new employees to take the training as well."

Gray, along with NUWC Newport Electrical Engineer Peter Lee, came to Norfolk to instruct nine Washington Sailors in the week-long Towed Array Handling course.

"Our sonar division is learning the ins and outs of the OA-9070E Towed Array Handling System -- the electrical and mechanical gear that's associated with it and how to operate it," said Sonar Technician Submarines 1st Class Kelly Vance, assigned to Washington. "The instructors brought simulators to class to teach us how to use the control indicator panel, so we can learn how to operate the (handler) system from the panel. It's important because there's a lot of technical pieces that go into this training and learning how to operate the system."

According to Gray, Sailors who operate the system don't get to see the towed array equipment running. The equipment is located in the ballast tank (free flood area) while the cabinet used to operate the system is inside the submarine.

"There's a hope of faith that everything is working properly," said Gray. "In a land-based test facility, everything is out in the open. When you hit 'deploy' you actually see everything moving, so it sinks in more from a learning perspective to understand what happens when you hit this (button). Here, we don't have the whole test facility, but we do have simulators."

The simulators are designed to replicate running the handler system aboard a submarine and are identical, as if Sailors were actually in front of the system.

"We have an advantage (using simulators) here because we can insert faults into the system," said Gray. "Systems don't always run the way they should, so we can make problems happen. The students will be in front of the simulators and all of a sudden they will get a warning or hear an alarm and have to ask themselves, 'Okay, what do we do now?' Peter and I walk them through that process. Knowing how the system operates (mechanically), they apply their knowledge to the alarms to understand how to get past them and rectify the system. The more self-sufficient they are at understanding this, if they are out at sea, the more apt they are to resolve the problem."

The OA-9070E Towed Handling System course is broken into sections - part lecture and part hands-on learning. The first day is spent teaching Sailors the mechanical aspects of the system, understanding how the motors and locks work. From there, they learn about the electronics of the system, which covers operation of the system.

Instructors split the class between lecture and simulator training to allow students the hands on of getting to know the system.

"No one else has the tool set to give this training and that's what's really critical," said Gray. "You can show power point slides all day long, but it's not going to register the way it does when you have a simulator running the way you run the system on a boat."

In addition to supporting training, MARMC works closely with NUWC the In-Service Engineering Agent (ISEA)) as MARMC performs all ship modernization, according to Schools.

"We've got great teamwork between the two of us," said Schools. "There's a lot of synergy in what we do. When a system is developed by the program managers at Naval Sea Systems Command, they assign a warfare center to be the people who assist them technically and maintain it for the life cycle of that system (the ISEA)."

Schools' branch is traveling back and forth to NNS to visit Washington as it is being built, in order to learn more about it. Virginia class submarines use an electronic towed array system, where all other class submarines use a hydraulic system.

"The electronic system is much more programmable than the hydraulic system," said Schools. "There are things you gain by using an electronic system. You don't have all that hydraulic oil, so you gain a lot of possibilities in ship design. Design wise, in electronics, you also deal with obsolescence maintainability. These Sailors' systems haven't even been put together yet. It's in a stage right now that you don't ever get to see it in, so it's pretty exciting to see."

PCU Washington will commission in 2017.

For more news from Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, visit www.navy.mil/.