Posted on 06/05/2017 8:28:16 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
Pres. Donald Trump used the Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, as a backdrop to unveil his vision for the next defense budget in March 2017.
The moment was meant to symbolize his commitment to rebuilding the military, but it also positioned the president in front of a monument to the Navy’s and defense industry’s ability to justify spending billions in taxypayer dollars on unproven technologies that often deliver worse performance at a higher cost.
The Ford program also provides yet another example of the dangers of the Navy’s and industry’s end-running the rigorous combat testing that is essential to ensuring our fighting men and women go to war with equipment that works.
The Navy had expected to have the ship delivered in 2014 at a cost of $10.5 billion. But the inevitable problems resulting from the concurrency the Navy built into developing Ford’s new and risky technologies, more than a dozen in all, caused the schedule to slip by more than three years and the cost to increase to $12.9 billion—nearly 25 percent over budget.
For all this time and money, “poor or unknown reliability of the newly designed catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators, and radar, which are all critical for flight operations, could affect CVN-78’s ability to generate sorties, make the ship more vulnerable to attack or create limitations during routine operations.
The poor or unknown reliability of these critical subsystems is the most significant risk to CVN-78.”
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Maybe they should build a couple of Nimitz class carriers while they work out the kinks on the Ford. They did that after building the Enterprise, mainly because they needed to design and aircraft carrier nuclear plant, but it also helped iron out issues with nuclear vs conventional.
Thank you for the positive post.
Fast On Race Day. The really cool kids made fun of Chevies with their backwards motors.
They should have Carnival cruise lines build the carrier : )
They build 200,000 ton ships for $1 billion.
C ertified
H eathen’s
E veryday
V ehicle.
Y uck.
FTA: “Like earlier carriers, Ford has four launch catapults so that — theoretically — should one fail, the ship could continue operations using the remaining three. But the Navy found there is no way to electrically isolate each EMALS catapult from the others during flight operations, raising questions about the system’s operational suitability.”
Cannot they just replace the fuse?...... : )
Looks like General Atomics made out like a pirate on this ship build.
“Can’t speak for all the systems, but cats and arresting gear will, in the future have to operate with a wider range of launch and landing weights.”
Wider than the distance between an 82,000 pound A3D Skywarrior and a 10,000 pound F4U Corsair? Doubtful. Even a COD has a takeoff weight of only 60,000. Steam is adjustable and has spent decades coping from trainers to the Whale. The spread today is much narrower.
I have long believed that the Navy should name fighting ships after Native American warriors. Imagine ..USS Crazy Horse.
But not Lie-awatha or Pocahontas.
That would run the risk of inspiring sailors and making them feel pride. Most big ships now carry political names. The Carriers are all presidents. Can’t remind anyone about the Revolutionary war.
They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to use the USS Enterprise name. And without Star Trek I bet they wouldn’t have.
For some bizarre reason, now it has to be Presidents.
P oor
O ld
N egro
T hinks
I t’s
A
C adillac
The Corsairs wouldn’t have used catapults. So the lower limit would be A4C Skyhawks at 15-20,000lb. Still lighter than anything launched today
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.