Navy’s $13 billion aircraft carrier had launch system failure
The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier experienced a failure of its electromagnetic launch system last week in the latest sign that the $13.2 billion vessel hasn’t fully resolved hurdles tied to its cutting-edge technology as it undergoes at-sea testing.
The system — which propels planes off the deck — “went down” June 2 just before a scheduled aircraft launch, the Navy said in a statement published late Sunday. The failure of the system, built by General Atomics, “curtailed flight operations to some extent,” according to the statement.
No root cause for the breakdown has been found, according to an internal Navy document. After several days, the Navy said, it found a workaround to the catapult problem and jets were able to resume flight operations on Sunday on the USS Gerald R. Ford.
“The crew supported by a team of experts developed an alternate method to launch the air wing off yesterday,” Captain Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, said in a statement. “Any corrective actions will be key to ensuring that when Ford enters the fleet after operational testing” it’s ready to support operations, he added.
Reliability problems with the catapult system have been among previously identified, high-profile technology issues confronting the Ford, the first of three carriers in a new class.
The earlier problems attracted President Donald Trump’s attention. Comparing the catapult system to an older, steam-driven version on previous ships, Trump said in 2018 that “steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic — I mean, unfortunately, you have to be
Albert Einstein to really work it properly.”
The latest breakdown didn’t pose a “safety-of-flight risk” because of where and when in the system it took place, the Navy document said. It “occurred during a manual reset” of the “power handling” system, which is in accordance with current procedures, it added.
In a report in January, Pentagon testers continued to report “deficiencies and limitations” with the ship’s radar, electronic warfare surveillance system and a ship-to-ship communications data network.
Those issues followed the discovery that none of the 11 elevators needed to bring weapons up to the Ford’s deck were installed when the ship was delivered in May 2017. The Navy says it’s making steady progress installing them.
The ship was performing post-delivery sea trials with an air wing when the launch system went down.
The Ford has completed more than 3,000 launches and recoveries using the new system along with the ship’s Advanced Arresting Gear for catching jets as they land on its deck. “While quite an achievement, it is an insufficient number of events from which to draw conclusions with respect to reliability,” the Navy document said.