Us Navy struggling with elevators on his Ford aircraft carriers

The aircraft carrier of the Ford Next Ford class is almost finished, but it could be retained by challenges with elevators, naval officers and officials said this week.

It’s a bit of already seen. The same technology was at the center of the headache for the USS Gerald R. Ford, the first in the new class of naval supercarriers, and now elevators are a challenge while the naval manufacturers work to finish the next class ship.

“The John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) is nearly 95% of construction and has a contract delivery date of July 2025,” said Navy officials on Tuesday in a joint statement before the armed services of the Armed Services Committee, Seapower Sousower, on the state of nuclear naval construction. “However, we assess this significant pressure on that date.”

Civil servants have cited problems with some of the CVN 79 technologies, namely elevators and systems for launching and recovery of advanced aircraft.

They declared that the pressure to respect the date of contractual delivery is driven by “critical path challenges, mainly in advanced elevators of weapons and the launch and the recovery equipment of aircraft”.

The officials added that even if “the initial challenges of class design are resolved”, some of the “challenges focused on early class and associated learning continue on CVN 79.”

Advanced weapon elevators with electromagnetic engines, advanced stop equipment and an electromagnetic launch system for planes were problems during the development and construction of the first USS Gerald R. Ford in class, which was faced with delays and cost overruns mainly attributed to integration problems surrounding new systems and capacities.

The elevators of the Ford, for example, were not installed when the carrier was delivered in May 2017, well beyond the original delivery objective of 2015. The first of the 11 arms elevators arrived in December 2018.

The secretary of the Navy at the time, Richard Spencer, put his work on the repair of the Ford elevators in early 2019, but the problem persisted beyond the deadline. In January 2020, the secretary of action of the time, Thomas, said that the problem was “in a way a disaster”, but noted that the service “was going to settle after the problem”.

In their joint declaration on Tuesday, naval officials highlighted the successful deployments of the USS Gerald R. Ford, indicating that the problem is in production, not in the design at this stage. They added that the lessons learned are implemented on CVN 80 and 81.

The navy did not immediately respond to the request of Business Insider on the specific Problems with arms elevators and potential delays on CVN 79 delivery.

The elevators of the Ford class are controlled by electromagnetic and linear synchronous engines, which effectively allow them to move more quickly and transport more ammunition.

Nimitz class carriers have weapons elevators that use pulleys and cables and can transport 10,500 pounds to 100 feet per minute. The Ford, on the other hand, can transport up to 24,000 pounds to 150 feet per minute.

Among other new Ford class technologies, the electromagnetic launch system for planes, or Emals, is also an upgrade on steam catapults on Nimitz class carriers. The system is designed for faster outings of heavier aircraft, but technology has experienced questionable performance, as is the new advanced stop equipment for the recovery of aircraft.

The inclusion of elevators and Emals has also been associated with overall changes in the ship’s disposal.

President Donald Trump has already criticized catapults and arms elevators on the Ford, expressing his concern about the use of magnets in advanced technology.

Navy officials who testified before the Congress on Tuesday said that “the navy and the navy hii-nns are hyper concentrated on a CVN 79 delivery plan which results in the fastest path to a CVN, the crew and the ready-to-use airline wing.”