As anticipation builds for the East Coast commissioning on May 5 of the state's namesake submarine, USS Hawaii, Capt. James Ransom III was asked a question here that's likely to be repeated.

"The question was, 'Well, I don't understand if it's being commissioned in May, why it can't be here at the end of May,' " said Ransom, director of operations, plans and policy for the U.S. Pacific Fleet submarine force.

In fact, the approximately $2.5 billion sub, the third of the new Virginia class to be built and the Navy's first major combat ship designed for a post-Cold War environment, isn't expected to arrive at Pearl Harbor until early 2009.

The nuclear submarine is designed to operate in both the open ocean and nearshore shallows, and Hawaii has improved stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities and special warfare enhancements.

Even though the 377-foot ship — the first of several Virginia-class subs anticipated to be based in Hawai'i — was delivered to the Navy in December, ongoing work will keep it from arriving here far beyond its spring commissioning in Groton, Conn., where the submarine was built.

But that isn't dampening enthusiasm for the May 5 event, or the importance of having a new class of Navy vessel in Hawai'i carrying the state's name.

"I would like to make the USS Hawaii the people's boat, the state's boat," said Bruce Smith, a retired Navy captain and president of HSI Electric.

The company, which does work on the public and private side of the shipyard business in Hawai'i, on Friday donated $10,000 to the Navy League Honolulu Council. The Navy League is kicking off a fundraising campaign to raise $120,000 for the commissioning ceremony in Groton.

A PACIFIC TRADITION

More than 2,000 people, including Gov. Linda Lingle, the ship's sponsor, are expected to attend. A Web site with updates is at www.theusshawaii.com.

Smith recalled how Pacific submarines, missed by the Japanese in the Pearl Harbor attack, carried the fight to the enemy.

Pacific Fleet submarines accounted for 54 percent (5 million tons) of enemy shipping sunk during World War II.

Later, the USS Kamehameha was one of the "41 for freedom" ballistic missile submarines. USS Honolulu, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, left Pearl Harbor on her final deployment to the western Pacific last year.

"So now, with just a short gap in service, we have USS Hawaii coming along to carry on the tradition of a submarine" named in connection with the state, Smith said.

In early December, during sea trials, the Hawaii, which can dive deeper than 800 feet, submerged for the first time and performed high-speed runs.

In a test of an emergency main ballast blow, the sub also rocketed to the surface nose first in a dramatic ascent.

Officials said the tests were so successful that the ship returned to port a day early. The Navy at the time said the Hawaii's performance was "superb."

General Dynamics Electric Boat Division delivered the sub to the Navy ahead of schedule on Dec. 22, prompting the company's president, John Casey, to say, "We are improving our cost performance in this program significantly."

He added that the Hawaii was built in 2 million worker hours — less time than the USS Virginia, the first in the submarine's class, which took 12 million worker hours to build.

But a lot of work and training remains to be done. The stealthy submarines have been likened to Ferraris — high-performance cars that need continuous maintenance.

Lt. Mark Jones, a Navy spokesman for Submarine Group 2 in Groton, which has ownership of what's called PCU (Pre-Commissioning Unit) Hawaii, prefers a space-shuttle analogy.

"In fact, it's more complex than the space shuttle, because both a submarine and a space shuttle are keeping humans alive in a nonhuman environment," Jones said. "The submarine doesn't travel as fast as the space shuttle, but where the space shuttle is keeping five or six people alive for five or six days, we're keeping 130 people alive for three to four months at a time."

After commissioning and acoustics and other testing, the Hawaii may get a several-month mission — much like the first in the class, the USS Virginia — but it will have to return to the Groton shipyard in spring 2008 for up to a year of improvements and fine-tuning called the "post-shakedown availability."

The 377-foot Hawaii is 17 feet longer than the 17 aging Los Angeles-class attack subs that are based at Pearl Harbor.

COST A CONSIDERATION

The Pentagon decided that production of the deeper-diving but more expensive Seawolf class, which displaces 9,100 tons, would end after the third submarine.

Naval analyst and author Norman Polmar says the total price for the three subs was $15 billion to $18 billion. The Virginia class, displacing 7,835 tons, was intended as a more cost-efficient replacement.

Polmar said he expects the Navy to base more of the Virginia-class subs at Pearl Harbor.

"It's easier to support the same type of class of submarine in one area," he said. "Pearl Harbor may be the headquarters for the first five or six of them (in the Pacific)."

That would mean continuous work for the Pearl Harbor shipyard.

Six being built now and in the future are named for the states of Virginia, Texas, Hawai'i, North Carolina, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

The Navy expects to pay for two Virginia-class subs per year starting by 2012 at the latest, which is double the current rate, and is trying to get the price down to $2 billion a sub.

The submarines have four 21-inch torpedo tubes and 12 vertical launch tubes with Tomahawk missiles.

Gone is the hull-penetrating periscope, which has been replaced by cameras and sensors mounted on masts, allowing command and control to be moved to larger quarters on the second deck level.

Modularity and a change in the way 4,000-pound torpedoes are carried means that more room can be created.

That space can be filled with torpedoes, for a maximum of 24, or berthing can be created for 30 SEAL commandos.

A topside lockout can accommodate nine SEALs, instead of two on Los Angeles-class submarines, meaning quicker deployments.

The Navy is placing more emphasis on the nearshore shallows where ships and commerce are concentrated, and the Virginia-class subs have six side-mounted sonar arrays, plus arrays in the bow, sail and nose, improving capabilities for eavesdropping and mapping the ocean floor and minefields.

WEAPONS CRITICISM

In an interview in April, Hawaii skipper Cmdr. David Solms said the arrays give him "a little more confidence in driving the ship around in a challenging place."

Polmar said the Virginia class "is a good platform. Could it have been better for the cost? The answer is probably."

A criticism is with the weapons capacity, and with that tonnage of ship, the Navy "could have probably put in more weapons if you went to more innovative systems — like more external tubes," he said.

The Pacific submarine force's Ransom said between commissioning and the post-shakedown availability expected to start in the spring of 2008, "there's a good chance that these guys will get to do some type of a brief deployment for a couple of months."

The Virginia also went on such a mission, heading out for nearly three months off the coast of South America.

Polmar said there had been criticism of how long it was taking to build the sub, and questions about some of its systems.

"So I think the Navy, very astutely, sent her out and said OK, let's see what she can do," he said.

The Texas, the second in the class, did not go out on such a mission, and instead headed back to the shipyard four months after commissioning.

Ransom said part of the equation has to do with when the East Coast yards can schedule the follow-up work that needs to be done, and as it stands now, there is time in the Hawaii's schedule for a deployment.

But Ransom does not expect the Hawaii to be in this region before 2009.

"It makes sense for it to stay there instead of coming out here" only to have to turn around and return to the East Coast for follow-on work, he said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.