The First Of Class ship

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Summary

Engineer: BAE Systems
Photgrapher: BAE Systems
Fabricator: BAE Systems

About the project

In 2012 the Royal Australian Navy embarked on a capability upgrade project for the 8 ANZAC Class frigates. For the next 5 years the ships were upgraded to the latest and most sophisticated Anti-Ship Warfare capability of any navy. This was mostly based around a new Phased Array Radar system developed by a small company in Canberra, Australia. Building on the success of this project, and obsolescence of the ANZAC ships air search capability, the Canberra based company designed a replacement Air Search Phased Array Radar that required BAE Systems to design and build a new mast assembly for the ships that could house both the previous Anti-Ship Missile capability and the new Air Search Radar capability.

The new mast assembly is all aluminium and comprises both plate and extruded materials. In 2017 the build phase of the new masts commenced. Capral Aluminium has been the supplier of all of the aluminium raw materials for the mast and has worked closely with the BAE Systems design engineers in the development of the extruded components of the mast, often having to develop new processes and techniques to meet the very narrow tolerances the mast design required. The First Of Class ship has commenced Sea Trials of this new capability and the Navy is very pleased with the outcome.