Lies of Omission

Well, it appears that the Navy declared Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for the USS Ford on 22-Dec-2021, last year, without telling anyone.

 

The Navy in December quietly determined the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) had achieved initial operational capability, the program manager for the ship revealed today.

 

The milestone was officially reached on Dec. 22, 2021, when the last advanced weapons elevator was turned over … [1]

 

Apparently, they also declared the elevators all functional at the same time, again without telling anyone.  Unless they’ve miraculously solved the EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) reliability problems, which have been atrocious, without telling anyone, then the IOC declaration is a meaningless event since the ship is not operational because of the total lack of reliability that’s been demonstrated.

 

Initial operational capability is an important acquisition milestone that indicates the ship’s capabilities have reached the minimum thresholds required to be operationally useful.[1]

 

Again, given the EMALS and AAG reliability issues (see, “Ford Reliability”), the ship has not reached any minimum thresholds to be operationally useful.  This is a farce right up there with the Marine’s declaring IOC for the F-35 except on a massively larger scale.

 

There’s a real secrecy trend, here, that’s been growing for quite some time.  It began when the Navy classified INSURV inspection results to hide the increasing number of failures and continued to the more recent restricting of program test results by DOT&E using the ‘controlled unclassified’ category to prevent public viewing of generalized program test results, and now we’re seeing stealth pronouncements of IOC.  This is not healthy and will, eventually, come back to bite the Navy in the butt.  Keeping the taxpayer out of the loop is all kinds of wrong.  The Navy doesn’t own the Ford, the taxpayers do and they have the right to be kept abreast of developments.  There is nothing about declaring IOC that threatens national security so that it needs to be kept secret.

 

I assume the Navy’s reason for not publicly announcing what they were doing is that it would be embarrassing given the horrendous reliability problems were learned about in January of this year.  It’s clear this is just some kind of paperwork, pencil-whipping stunt and they should be embarrassed by it.  The Ford is not even remotely ready for operations and the Navy knows it.  Heck, the won’t even allow the Ford to do a real deployment;  instead, they’re doing an ‘employment’ with a partial air wing and staying close to land (see, “Ford Deployment Farce”).

 

 

 

________________________________

 

[1]Breaking Defense website, “Navy quietly declares aircraft carrier Ford operational”, Justin Katz, 5-Apr-2022,

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/navy-quietly-declares-aircraft-carrier-ford-operational/?_ga=2.255540097.865537751.1649096826-1009727458.1647467636

Ford Reliability

The nearly worthless DOT&E annual report has been released and one of the very few sets of actual data is for the Ford EMALS, AAG, and elevator systems.  Let’s take a look at the data.

 

Note: Reference is made in the quotes to ‘ISE’ which is an abbreviation for Independent Steaming Event which is part of a series of at sea, post-delivery tests and trials.  It’s basically one of a sequence of test periods at sea.  The number indicates which test/event it is in the sequence.  So, for example, ISE 12 would be the twelfth at sea test period.

 

 

EMALS

 

DOT&E reports this data for the Ford EMALS,

 

During the 8,157 catapult launches conducted through ISE 18, EMALS achieved a reliability of 272 mean cycles between operational mission failures (MCBOMF), where a cycle is the launch of one aircraft.  This reliability is well below the requirement of 4,166 MCBOMF. [1, p.144]

 

Compare this to the preceding year’s report,

 

During the 3,975 catapult launches conducted post PSA through ISE 11, EMALS demonstrated an achieved reliability of 181 mean cycles between operational mission failure (MCBOMF), where a cycle is the launch of one [2, p.137]

 

What is not clear is whether the phrase ‘through ISE 18’ refers to the total since the beginning of the program up through ISE 18 or whether it refers to the incremental change since the last DOT&E report (2020) which was ISE 11.  If it refers to the cumulative lifetime total then the results are skewed by the initial higher failure rate.  If it refers to the incremental number since the previous report then we can get a good feel for the current performance.

 

My interpretation is that the numbers are cumulative.  This means we can, therefore, take the difference between the current (2021) figure of 8,157 launches and the 2020 figure of 3,975 launches, do some simple arithmetic and get the performance for the last year (ISE 13 through ISE 18) which, presumably, should show substantial improvement over the initial performance and give us a good look at the current status.

 

Simple arithmetic gives us the actual number of failures and allows us to assemble the following table of data.[3]  Calculated data is indicated as such.  Remaining data is from the DOT&E report.

 

 

Launches	Failures	Actual MCBOMF	Required MCBOMF
8,157 (through ISE 18)	30 (calculated)	272	4,166
3,975 (through ISE 11)	22 (calculated)	181	4,166
4,182 (calculated - 2021)	8 (calculated)	522 (calculated)	4,166

 

 

We see, then, that the performance for last year (2021) showed substantial improvement from the initial failure rate of 181 to 522, however, it is still woefully short of the required 4,166.

 

Okay, it’s still very bad but if it keeps getting better we’ll be okay, right?

 

Unfortunately, no.  As with any developmental effort, progress and improvement is rapid in the initial stages and then slows quickly as the easy improvements are made and progress becomes increasingly more difficult.  Even if progress were to continue in a linear fashion at the current rate – say, improving from 181 to 522 each year – it would take just over 12 years to get from a failure rate of 522 to 4,166 … but, as I just explained,  that’s not how it works.  Barring a developmental breakthrough, I just don’t see EMALS ever being able to meet the failure rate (MCBOMF) or even come close.

 

 

Advanced Arresting Gear

 

For the AAG system, the current DOT&E report gives,

 

During 8,157 recoveries, AAG achieved a reliability of 41 MCBOMF, where a cycle is the recovery of a single aircraft. This reliability estimate falls well below the requirement of 16,500 MCBOMF. [1, p.144]

 

And, from the previous year’s DOT&E report,

 

Through the first 3,975 recoveries, AAG demonstrated an achieved reliability of 48 MCBOMF, where a cycle is the recovery of a single aircraft. This reliability estimate falls

well below the requirement of 16,500 MCBOMF. [2, p.137]

 

Treating the data as was done for EMALS,

 

 

Traps	Failures	Actual MCBOMF	Required MCBOMF
8,157 (through ISE 18)	199 (calculated)	41	16,500
3,975 (through ISE 11)	83 (calculated)	48	16,500
4,182 (calculated - 2021)	116 (calculated)	36 (calculated)	16,500

 

 

The data shows that we can only recover around 40 aircraft before experiencing an operational failure.  So, if we were to launch a full air wing strike, only half the aircraft could recover!

 

There are two things that are absolutely stunning about this data:

 

1.     The failure rate has barely changed from the initial data.  For practical purposes, there has been no improvement from the start until now!  In fact, the previous year’s failure rate is actually slightly worse than the initial rates!

2.     The difference between the actual MCBOMF of around 40 and the requirement of 16,500 is staggering.  No amount of further development is going to eliminate that gap and, as with EMALS, the easy improvements have already taken place and progress from now on will be slower.  Yikes!

 

 

Elevators

 

For the Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE), we have only one set of data.  From the DOT&E report,

 

Therefore, only preliminary reliability estimates are available to compare to the requirement of 932 hours between operational mission failure. Through the first 14,842 elevator cycles, 68 operational mission failures were reported. [1, p.145]

 

Again, simple arithmetic gives us the following:

 

cycles = 14,842

failures = 68

failure rate = 218 versus that target of 932

 

While this tells us that the performance is still well short of the requirement, it is at least numerically conceivable that the gap can be closed with further development.  On the other hand, with the amount of effort and man-hours that have already gone into this, it is hard to imagine that there is much more improvement left to be had.

 

 

Summary/Conclusion

 

The basic function of a carrier is to arm planes (weapon elevators), launch planes (EMALS), and recover planes (AAG).  The Ford is currently unable to perform those basic functions at anywhere near the required level of reliability which means the Ford is unable to perform its basic function.

 

How do we get from where we are to the requirement?  Disturbingly, for the reasons discussed, it likely can’t be done.  We’re well into the diminishing returns portion of the development curve.  In other words, we’re entering the flatter portion of the development curve and improvements will be fewer and less impactful. 

 

So, what’s the alternative?  What can be done?  Well, we could rip out the systems and install something proven like the Nimitz systems but that’s almost prohibitively expensive and difficult since the Fords are not designed for those systems.  Instead, I’m going to predict that the Navy will do what they always do when they can’t meet a specification … change the requirement!  I predict the Navy will accept the current performance and simply change the specification.  And just like that, they’ve met the spec!

 

As bad as all this is, the really scary part is that we’re in the process of building three more identical carriers with, presumably, the same problems.  We are building an entire class of carriers that can’t perform their basic function.

 

The only slight hope is that the engineers have learned from the Ford and significantly modified the equipment for the subsequent carriers so that they will be able to perform their basic function.  Unfortunately, this is yet another example of concurrent construction.  We’re building multiple ships before the first one is complete and working properly so the EMALS, AAG, and AWE for the subsequent carriers were ordered long ago, before there was time for the development feedback loop to function and, therefore, the equipment is almost certainly identical, for all practical purposes.  Same equipment … same problems.

 

Of course, given DOT&E’s new practice of concealing almost all data, it’s likely that we’ll never see any data for the other carriers so we’ll have only the Navy’s official statements to inform us … and those will be glowing, without a doubt, as the Navy’s official pronouncements about the Ford have been.  In fact, I’m quite surprised that DOT&E exposed even this data.

 

On the plus side, China has committed to EMALS for their carriers so they’ll likely have the same problems!

 

 

_________________________________

 

[1]Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, 2021 Annual Report, Jan 2022

 

[2]Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, 2020 Annual Report, Jan 2021

 

[3] Launches / failure rate = number of failures

8,157 / 272  = 30 fails

3,975 / 181  = 22 fails

 

Taking the difference between those two data sets

4,182 / 522  = 8 fails

Ford Update

The Navy has, essentially, stopped releasing any data or information on the Ford, even to DOT&E which has noted that the Navy is no longer providing EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) and AAG (Advanced Arresting Gear) performance and reliability data.

 

That leaves us to infer the state of the Ford so …  let’s do some inferring!

 

EMALS

 

How is EMALS coming along?  Well, you’ll recall that the last data we had from DOT&E, before the Navy stopped providing data – which should, itself, infer something negative about the system - , showed that the system was failing at a staggering rate.

 

Out of 747 shipboard launches performed with the EMALS, ten had suffered critical failures. The target reliability average was one critical failure per 4,166 launch cycles. The launch system is over 50 times less reliable than the target failure rate. Every time they try to launch the full complement of airplanes they will have a critical failure.

 

The landing system also fails every 70-75 times it is used. This is over 200 times less reliable than planned. General Atomics engineers made it impossible to repair the AAG landing failures without shutting down flight operations. The AAG power supply can’t be disconnected from the high-voltage supply while flights continue. (3)

 

Is the EMALs doing any better, now?

 

Ford’s EMALS experienced a crash over the summer [June 2020], prohibiting the carrier from performing flight operations for five days. (1)

 

… the ship’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) suffered a failure that prevented the carrier from launching planes for five days …

 

On June 2, the crew discovered a fault in the power handling system that connects the ship’s energy-generating turbines to the EMALS power system.

…

 

 “After several days of troubleshooting and assessing a fault in the launch system’s power handling elements, embarked EMALS experts and Ford’s crew restored the system to enable the safe fly-off of the air wing on Sunday morning, June 7… (2)

 

As we have previously noted, the interconnected nature of the catapults assures that if one goes down, they all go down and this was case in this incident.  It is also noteworthy that it required several days of troubleshooting to restore the system enough to fly off the air wing.  The wording seems to suggest that the restoration was a temporary fix although that is far from clear. 

 

It is also worth noting the presence of ‘embarked EMALS experts’ which would not normally be present during routine operations.  This has two implications:

 

• That the troubleshooting and repair was likely beyond the capabilities of the Navy crew.  This does not bode well for combat damage repair efforts.
• That the presence of embarked experts absolutely indicates that the EMALS is still not working correctly and reliably or else the experts would not need to be on the ship three years into its commissioning and during pre-deployment workups and trials which should be about training for naval operations rather than still struggling to get the EMALS system to perform at basic, contract-mandated levels of reliability.

 

The inference from the above is that EMALS is still woefully short of contract-mandated levels of performance and reliability.

 

AAG

 

Okay, what about the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) system?

 

Capt. Josh Sager, the commanding officer of Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8), said Nov. 17 that Ford had all three of its AAG wires operating with no issues for the preceding four to six days. (1)

 

Cummings [Commanding Officer Capt. J.J. Cummings] described the reliability for both the Dual Band Radar and AAG as getting better throughout every at-sea period. (1)

 

The fact that Capt. Sager thought it noteworthy enough to publicly state that the AAG had worked for ‘the preceding four to six days’ suggests that this level of performance is exceptional and should be noted.  Proudly noting that the landing gear worked for a few days in a row is extremely worrisome.  It suggests that this is not the norm.

 

That Capt. Cummings described the reliability of the AAG as ‘getting better throughout every at-sea period’ again strongly suggests that the AAG is a major problem, though slowly improving.

 

The inference, here, is that the AAG is still woefully short of contract-mandated reliability levels and is at a barely functional level. 

 

Overall, how is the Ford doing with launches and recoveries?

 

Since the beginning of 2020, Ford has conducted 5,000 launches and recoveries of aircraft – most of which the crew has done in the last eight months — and is slated to achieve 6,000 by the end of this calendar year, Cummings said. (1)

 

The question, of course, is not how many total launches and recoveries have been performed but how many have been done between catapult and arresting system failures.  What is the failure rate?  The evidence suggests that the failure rate is still far greater than specified and is likely to continue to be a problem for a few more years, at least.  This is extremely worrisome if the Ford should ever be called to combat.

 

The evidence suggests that the Ford is not capable of reliable, sustained open ocean launch/recoveries, meaning that the ship has to stay within reach of land divert bases so as not to lose aircraft when EMALS and AAG failures occur.  Three years into commissioning, this is inexcusable and everyone associated with this program should be fired.

 

Weapon Elevators

 

So much for launch and recover.  What about those disastrous weapon elevators?

 

With the seventh of 11 weapons elevators slated for certification before the end of this calendar year, … the remaining four will be completed by the end of April 2021. Newport News Shipbuilding has 200 shipyard workers aboard the carrier to aid in finishing the elevators … (1)

 

How bad are these elevators that 200 specialist workers are working on them 24/7 and the best projection is that they’ll be ready by the middle of 2021?  What does this suggest for battle damage repair when the Ford doesn’t have 200 weapon elevator engineers on board?

 

 

 

Summary

 

Ford is in bad shape with major systems failing to meet specification.  The worst aspect of the Ford’s launch and recovery issues is that the design is fundamentally and irrevocably flawed from a maintenance perspective.  The individual catapults and arresting gear cannot be electrically isolated and worked on.  The entire carrier must be powered down to work on any single component.

 

The reliability concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the crew cannot readily electrically isolate EMALS components during flight operations due to the shared nature of the Energy Storage Groups and Power Conversion Subsystem inverters on board CVN 78. The process for electrically isolating equipment is time-consuming; spinning down the EMALS motor/generators takes 1.5 hours by itself. The inability to readily electrically isolate equipment precludes EMALS maintenance during flight operations. (4)

 

The reliability concerns are magnified by the current AAG design that does not allow electrical isolation of the Power Conditioning Subsystem equipment from high power buses, limiting corrective maintenance on below-deck equipment during flight operations. (4)

 

This issue will continue to plague Ford throughout its service life since it is not correctable.  This also renders the Ford highly suspect as a viable combat unit.  If this design flaw has been continued into the subsequent ships of the class, we are building a class of carriers that has very poor damage repair capability and can be rendered combat incapable by minor battle damage or even simple, routine electrical or mechanical failures.

 

Absent any information from the Navy, we are left to quite reasonably infer that the Ford is a floating pile of hot, steaming excrement.  If the Navy would have us believe otherwise then they need to resume releasing performance and reliability data to DOT&E and the public.  The clamp down on data pretty much tells us just how bad the situation is and is reminiscent of the Navy’s response to the epidemic of INSURV failures which led to the Navy classifying the results instead of fixing them.

 

 

 

______________________________

 

(1)USNI News website, “USS Gerald R. Ford Making Steady Progress Ahead of Deployment”, Mallory Shelbourne, 24-Nov-2020,

https://news.usni.org/2020/11/24/uss-gerald-r-ford-making-steady-progress-ahead-of-deployment

 

(2)USNI News website, “USS Gerald Ford EMALS Launching System Suffers Fault During Testing Period”, Sam LaGrone, 8-Jun-2020,

https://news.usni.org/2020/06/08/uss-gerald-ford-emals-launching-system-suffers-fault-during-testing-period

 

(3)Next Big Future website, “Ford Carrier is a Failure With Huge Radar, Elevator, Launch and Landing Problems”, Brian Wang, 31-Oct-2019,

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/10/ford-carrier-is-a-failure-with-huge-radar-elevator-launch-and-landing-problems.html

 

(4)DOT&E FY 2019 Annual Report, 20-Dec-2019

Ford Certifies Another Elevator

USS Ford has finally certified another Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) for use.  As stated by Rear Adm. James P. Downey, program executive officer for Aircraft Carriers,

“Certifying Lower Stage Weapons Elevator 5 [LSWE 5] is extraordinarily significant, in that we now have the capability to move ordnance from the aft magazine complex deep in the ship through the carrier to the flight deck with a speed and agility that has never been seen before on any warship in any fleet.” (1)

A couple of thoughts, here, Admiral:

• The speed and ?agility? (what the hell is elevator ‘agility’?) of the elevator is utterly irrelevant as the weapon elevators have never been bottlenecks in any previous carrier.  This is pure marketing garbage being repeated by the Navy.
• There is nothing ‘extraordinarily significant’ about one more elevator.  Talk to me again when you have all the elevators working, as they should have been long ago, and then you’ll have something slightly significant though horrendously overdue.

The delusional Admiral goes on,

“In just the last few weeks, we’ve seen an increase in the velocity of flight deck operations and new system certifications aboard Gerald R. Ford that’s beyond impressive.” (1)

‘Certifications … that’s beyond impressive’?????  Impressive would have been installing working elevators during the ship’s construction, on time, and as specified in the construction contract.  Installing one more elevator when several still don’t work is not only unimpressive but downright embarrassing.  Even more embarrassing is you calling a partial achievement that is years late, ‘beyond impressive’.  The reality is that it’s beyond embarrassing and you, Admiral, are beyond pathetic.

According to the UK Defence Journal article,

In the past year, Newport News Shipbuilding has turned over four of the ship’s 11 AWEs to the crew … (1)

The shipbuilder has managed to turn over 4 of the 11 elevators in a year????  That’s horrible!  That tells us just how badly the Navy and the elevator manufacturer misjudged this project.

All of the above is staggeringly bad but there’s an aspect that is even worse.  Worse by far.  Here it is,

The ability to identify and to mitigate issues associated with each elevator’s unique operational tolerances has generated hands-on physical adjustments and software refinements, ensuring that future AWE operations are sustainable and reliable, say the US Navy in a release. (1)

Do you grasp the import of that statement?  It’s saying that the elevators are not copies of each other.  Instead, it’s saying that each elevator is so unique and is so complex and so finicky that they have to be individually fine-tuned and adjusted and individually programmed.  What does that tell us about future maintenance and repairs - whether due to normal wear and tear or due to battle damage?  It tells us that there is no hope of repair and that nothing done to one elevator is applicable to another elevator.

This is the equivalent of every single aircraft in the air wing being a completely different aircraft and requiring its own unique parts and maintenance.  That would be insane and yet that’s exactly what we appear to have with these elevators.  Nothing that’s done to one can be applied to the others!

This is beyond scary.  This is stupidity and insanity carried to the extreme.  And for what?  There was nothing wrong with the Nimitz class weapon elevators and yet we opted to create brand new elevators with never before seen technology just for the sake of new technology.  Even if/when they work, they will have solved no problem because there was no problem with the existing elevators.  We came up with an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem.

And yet we have clueless Admirals praising this as somehow noteworthy.

Despicable.

____________________________

(1)UK Defence Journal, “Fifth Advanced Weapons Elevator certified aboard USS Gerald R. Ford”, George Allison, 13-May-2020,

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/fifth-advanced-weapons-elevator-certified-aboard-uss-gerald-r-ford/

USS Ford - Ups and Downs

As we all know, the new aircraft carrier, the USS Ford, has had many problems, delays, and cost overruns due, mainly, to the Navy’s use of concurrency in attempting to develop new technologies at the same time as production.  Predictably (well, for everyone but the Navy), the attempt has failed.  The EMALS launch system and the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) have been two notable failures.  However, there is another new technology that has been just as problem plagued but has not received as much attention – the ship’s Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWE).  These elevators are used on carriers to move munitions from the ship’s magazines to the flight deck and handling areas for subsequent loading onto the aircraft.  The elevators are quite small compared to the main aircraft elevators.

One would think that small weapons elevators would be straightforward, well known technology and one would be correct.  However, the Navy opted to abandon the well established elevators of the Nimitz class and, instead, develop a brand new electromagnetic elevator that works similar to the EMALS catapult system.  As with the EMALS, development has been difficult and the Ford was delivered with non-functional elevators, all 11 of them.

Here’s more evidence of the lack of elevator installation upon delivery of the Ford.  A NavSea official stated,

 

The Post Shakedown Availability is planned for 12 months, with the critical path being Advanced Weapons Elevator construction … (5)

Note the use of the word “construction” as opposed to repair or fine-tuning or modification or something similar.  The elevators appear to have simply not been installed or, at least, not in anything resembling a usable form!

And,

The Navy announced plans to repair the ship’s 11 “Advanced Weapons Elevators” — all of which have been non-functional since the carrier first took to the water.

Currently, two of those malfunctioning elevators are being used to help “to identify many of the remaining developmental issues for this first-of-class system,” the Navy says. They expect to bring the full suite of elevators online with this round of repairs, but were sure to include in their statement that all the elevator systems “should have been complete and delivered with the ship delivery” in May 2017. (1)

If the Navy acknowledges that the elevators should have been “complete and delivered with the ship delivery”, why did the Navy accept the ship?  They should have refused delivery until the elevators were installed and functioning. 

  

To review, the elevators were initially developed by Federal Equipment Company (FEC) along with MagneMotion and Northrop Grumman Newport News.  FEC received a contract from Northrop in 2005 to build 11 elevators for the Ford aircraft carrier.  To be clear, these are the smaller weapons elevators, not the three large aircraft elevators.

On paper, the elevators are quite impressive.  Of course, paper claims always are!

FEC’s Advanced Weapons Elevator demonstrates a 24,000-pound lift capacity, with 150% overload capacity. Designed to move at 150 feet per minute, it accelerates to full speed in 2 seconds. The state-of-the-art elevators increase capacity over 200% and speed by 50% compared to the legacy elevators.

Features include motor thermal protection, emergency braking, and [a] "smart control system" that estimates the payload weight. (2)

FEC has built a test facility housing a full scale elevator with 32 feet of travel. (2)

The Advanced Weapons Elevators are similar to the EMALS catapult system in that they use linear motors and magnetic effects to move the object - the elevator, in this case, instead of an aircraft.

Here’s a brief summary of how the elevator works: (3)

• Linear motors are attached to each corner of the elevator
• Magnets inside each motor interact with electric coils lining the shaft
• A current pulses through the coils, lifting the magnets and platform
• Magnets hold the elevator in place

Of course, all this capability comes at a cost.  The AWE is around twice the cost of existing Nimitz class weapons elevators. (3)

Interestingly, the government (Naval Surface Warfare Center) posted notice in Feb 2018 of their intent to award a sole source contract to Hunt Valve Actuator (Virginia) for an elevator unit, installation, parts, support, logistics, etc. (4)  I don’t know if this means that the Navy has gotten fed up with FEC and decided to switch suppliers or if they’re simply developing an alternate source (then why the sole source designation?) or some other reason.

Aside from the idiotic use of concurrency, which the Navy seems absolutely wedded to in the face of repeated, overwhelming evidence of its failure, there are other potential issues with the electromagnetic elevators.

Advanced Weapons Elevator

Electromagnetic Shielding.  One of the major faults of the EMALS catapult system is that it uses very large and very powerful electric motors which, unbelievably, are not electromagnetically shielded.  Former CNO Greenert once referred to them as “electromagnetic beacons” when discussing emissions control (EMCON) protocols.  The stray electromagnetic radiation will keep anyone who’s interested well informed about the Ford’s location. 

The question arises, are the AWE elevators shielded?  If a major component like the EMALS is not shielded, it is highly unlikely that the elevators are.  Of course, given the size and emissions of the EMALS, the additional stray emissions from the elevators are unlikely to matter much.

This is just another example demonstrating that the Navy has forgotten how to design ships for combat.

Repair.  Yet another major fault of the EMALS catapult system is that single catapults – there are four – cannot be repaired without taking all of the catapults down.  The electrical supply system was designed in such a way that a single catapult cannot be electrically isolated for repairs.  The catapults are all up or all down.  The inability to isolate and repair a single catapult is a breathtakingly stupid flaw for a combat system.  The question is does this same flaw apply to the weapons elevators?  I have no idea but it’s a question that demands an answer.

In summary, the weapons elevators are an all too common example of what is plaguing the Navy today.  The desire to rush non-existent technology into production is causing cost overruns, schedule delays, and serious credibility issues.  If the Navy would only show a little patience and let new technologies mature in the lab, where they belong, they would come out far ahead in the long run. 

________________________________________

(1)News Rep website, “Repairs on the USS Gerald R. Ford engines and elevators to cost another $120 million”, Alex Hollings, 16-May-2018,

https://thenewsrep.com/103256/repairs-on-the-uss-gerald-r-ford-engines-and-elevators-to-cost-another-120-million/

(2)Federal Equipment Co. website,

http://military.federalequipment.com/products/Elevators/AWE

(3)WVXU website, “The Navy's Next Generation Of Weapons Elevators Was Designed Here In Cincinnati”, Ann Thompson, 9-Apr-2018,

http://www.wvxu.org/post/navys-next-generation-weapons-elevators-was-designed-here-cincinnati#stream/0

(4)https://govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportunity/advanced-weapons-elevator-engineering-services-n6449818r0013

(5)The National Interest website, “The Reason the Navy Is Exploding Bombs Near Its New Nuclear Aircraft Carrier”, Kris Osborn, 14-May-2018,

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-reason-the-navy-exploding-bombs-near-its-new-nuclear-25813