The keel of the F111 frigate was laid at Navantia’s shipyard in Ferrol, Spain on 9 August, the first unit of a series of five new generation frigates designed for the Spanish Navy.
This ship is scheduled to be launched in 2025, with delivery to the Spanish Navy in 2028. Delivery of the rest of the ships will have a cadence of 12 months, until 2032, when the fifth unit will be delivered. Production of the second unit, the F112, will begin before the end of the year.
The program incorporates digital twinning, creating a virtual replica of the ship supplied with live information from the vessel through a network of onboard sensors, constituting a cyber-physical system that can support its maintenance and operation from thousands of miles away.
"The F110 is a transformative lever for our entire industrial and technological ecosystem. If this shipyard in Ferrol is already a world reference in frigate construction, this program will place it at the technological and industrial vanguard, with the next construction of the digital block factory and the Digital Twin Center of Excellence", said the president of Navantia, Ricardo Domínguez.
Navantia is one of the companies currently pitching options for the Royal Australian Navy, as a result of the Defence Strategic Review stating the Australian surface fleet should comprise Tier 1 and Tier 2 vessels to provide for increased strike, air defence, presence operations and anti-submarine warfare.