Landing Craft Air Cushion

The Landing Craft Air Cushion, known as the LCAC, is a class of air-cushioned landing craft, or hovercraft, that carry weapons systems, equipment, cargo and personnel from ship to shore and across the beach for the United States Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. The design grew out of two prototypes tested from 1977, JEFF A built by Aerojet General and JEFF B built by Bell Aerospace, and the Bell design was chosen in 1981. The first production craft reached the Navy in 1984 and full production was approved in 1987. After an initial contract that gave 15 craft to each of two firms, Textron Marine and Land Systems of New Orleans and Avondale Gulfport Marine, Textron was selected to build the rest, and the last of the 91 planned craft was delivered in 2001. An LCAC carries a payload of 60 short tons, up to 75 in overload, at more than 40 knots with a crew of five, and it can leave a well deck ship and cross mud flats, dunes and marshes on its cushion of air. Its planned successor is the Ship-to-Shore Connector.