Hueneme Facility to Be Hub of Testing System

The Navy plans to bring two dozen jobs to Port Hueneme by creating a multimillion-dollar virtual missile testing system that supporters say should further gird the base against closure.

Called Virtual Test Capability, the five-year project will connect laboratories, ships and aircraft throughout the United States to provide a simulation of warfare situations, Navy officials said. This nationwide testing network would have the Navy’s Surface Warfare Engineering Facility as its hub.

Unlike a video game on a flat screen, the technology being used connects real weapon systems and missiles. A missile to be tested could be in a lab, while the radar equipment and ship were out on the range. A signal generator would be programmed to make a ship think it is under attack, and defend itself with missiles, which may be hundreds of miles away.

“They would go through the normal process [except] locking onto a nonexistent target,” said Cmdr. Paul Benfield, chief of staff at the engineering facility. “They’d push the button which would send the missile, and no missile is there. It monitors the electronics of the [phantom] incoming missile and their missile.”

A subject missile in the lab, with no warhead, would be linked to a computer that would simulate its launch.

The Navy has set aside nearly $30 million each year for the next five years to cover an estimated 24 staff members and contractors, and to pay for equipment, said Chuck Hogle, the project’s engineer. He said 40% of the work to update and operate the local portion of the testing system will come from local contractors.

The project will bolster the facility’s chances of surviving another round of base closures, Navy and local officials said.

“The government and community have worked a long time on keeping bases viable,” said Supervisor John Flynn, who has been lobbying against base closure. “We support this, and the community supports it.”

The project is an expansion of the ongoing weapons evaluation at the facility, and is therefore unlikely to affect testing at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, Hogle said.

The Navy already has the ability to conduct such tests, but as the military shrinks and funding is restricted, the service is looking for cheaper ways to examine more missiles before combat. The Navy has never done simulated testing at the level it hopes to accomplish during the next five years, Hogle said.

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The project won’t make live missile tests obsolete, but it will theoretically cut down on the number of such tests by allowing Navy technicians to pinpoint problems before actual tests, said Capt. J.W. “Stretch” Phillips, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

“This doesn’t mean we won’t do live testing,” he said. “It just allows us to work the bugs out.”

The testing system expansion will add three radar systems to the 12 the base has in place. The Navy hopes to finish an environmental impact report on the project by the end of summer.

Some residents near the base are concerned about the Navy’s plan.

“The question is how much does this increase the radar? Ten times more? A hundred times more?” asked Lee Quaintance, a member of the coastal conservation group Beacon Foundation. Some of the Navy’s information on radar emissions is considered classified, making it impossible for residents to know how much radiation exists or whether levels are harmful.

The California Coastal Commission is setting up a panel to evaluate the safety of the Surface Warfare Engineering Facility after a group of neighbors at Silver Strand Beach began questioning the Navy about the facility’s radar-testing operation. The Navy admitted it could not find the environmental reports that allowed the facility to be built.

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Although the local portion of this Navy project will be a negligible addition to the county’s $22-billion economy, economists and other area analysts welcomed the news.

“It’s symbolic,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. “All we’ve seen in the past is this trend toward downsizing and here’s this blip going the other way. . . . The fact that the DOD [Department of Defense] decided to make this investment in and of itself is good, but the economic impact isn’t going to be that great.”

Despite that, Penny Bohanon of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. said that such additions at the county’s military installations, even when relatively small, go a long way toward ensuring the county’s economic success.

In addition, because Navy officials have pledged to contract out 40% of the work to firms in the Ventura County area, it illustrates the Navy has a greater understanding of its role and responsibility in the local economy.

“They’re working smarter and more cost efficient and that they’ve brought the community into the fold on this is great news,” Bohanon said. “They are one of the county’s business partners and an important one. Whatever makes them better is something we should support.”

Times staff writer Coll Metcalfe contributed to this story.