Five Sailors graduated Nov. 9 from the inaugural Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Engineering Plant Technician (EPT) course at the Surface Warfare Officer School (SWOS) Engineering Learning Site on Naval Station, Mayport.

The EPT course is conducted in an Immersive Virtual Shipboard Environment (IVSE), which is software that projects a first person graphical perspective in a virtual reality replica of the engineering plant aboard a LCS. In the class, the EPT watchstanding role combines the traditional shipboard roles of Auxiliary Systems Monitor, Propulsion Systems Monitor, and Sounding and Securities into a single watchstander.

The EPT also performs routine system alignments for the Readiness Control Officer (RCO), who serves the Officer of the Deck as the Engineering Officer of the Watch in the pilot house. IVSE allows Sailors to perform the exact movements they would use on an actual ship. It is designed to give Sailors comprehensive training in the role of the EPT prior to stepping foot on an LCS.

"In the IVSE, the Sailor has the opportunity to do all of what's required of an EPT watchstander on the ship," explained Chief Warrant Officer Noel Genao, EPT Course Manager. "They can conduct any evolution, go through any drill casualty, and do it as many times as they want to until they get it correct and convert it into muscle memory.

"The whole purpose is to go through the course, step on board the ship, and only take a few weeks to gain the confidence of their leadership to become qualified to stand the watch."

The first EPT course using the IVSE was held last December in San Diego, and has so far been very successful in training future watchstanders. In this self-paced course, the first five to graduate from the Mayport program did so four weeks ahead of schedule.

"This particular course is designed to be self-paced with certain milestones being met by certain times; the credit goes to the Sailors, for putting in the effort and completing it early," said Engineman First Class (SW) Zachary Flatley, lead EPT instructor. "The Sailors who graduated early were showing up early! It's a completely new type of training. It's a virtual simulation of being on the ship, comparable to a video game, so some people are going to pick that up quicker, and more readily perform in that training environment."

The course is one of many virtual training courses that the Navy will use for training both pre-commissioning and off-hull LCS crews to ensure their "Train to Qualify" and "Train to Certify" milestones are met. It also provides an opportunity to maintain familiarization and proficiency with their ship while on shore and shorten on-the-job training at sea.

Currently, the Mayport site offers 18 workstations for IVSE Engineering instruction. That is expected to increase next year to five full Virtual Reality classrooms with 24 workstations each (120 total student stations). The program will ultimately include Deck and Combat Systems IVSE Sailor training, beginning in early 2019.

"I think it's definitely going to be the future of the LCS program," said Genao. "And it's going to get even better."

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