The Navy's newest supercarriers can't deploy with the new F-35 stealth fighters

The EMALS problem has been widely reported. I’m not smart enough to understand how a launch system that doesn’t work replaced time proven and reliable steam.

I’d like to know what modifications are needed to make Ford F-35 capable.

The Navy taking delivery with work still needed and congress raising cost caps lets Newport News off the hook. Even after delivery, the shipyard will be the one finishing the job. This goes way beyond the issues first in class ships always have.
 
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The EMALS problem has been widely reported. I’m not smart enough to understand how a launch system that doesn’t work replaced time proven and reliable steam.

I’d like to know what modifications are needed to make Ford F-35 capable.

The Navy taking delivery with work still needed and congress raising cost caps lets Newport News off the hook. Even after delivery, the shipyard will be the one finishing the job. This goes way beyond the issues first in class ships always have.
My first ship was under construction at Newport News when I reported in and I spent a total of about 18 months there over the course of that tour so I 'm pretty familiar with how it all fits together. When the Navy placed the contract with Newport News for the Ford, the details of what would be required for F-35 were not known and were not in the contract. As the Navy figured out the requirements, the normal thing is to go to the shipyard to get the contract specs changed to accommodate the changes at which point the shipyard gets to ask for consideration (money and schedule) to accomplish it. As this is often not acceptable to the Navy, it gets pushed out to the yard periods just after Commissioning/acceptance. When the Navy orders the next and follow on ships, the contract/spec is usually a copy of the original baseline and the Navy then asks for the change to be added in at whatever stage that ship is in the process. Often, it ends up later in the process for those ships as well.

Relevant Sea Story - In the first 2 yrs that my ship (a CGN) was in the fleet, we had our main deck scuttles (round hatches) replaced twice by better and even better designs. This is not a small change - requires welding/cutting them in and out of the deck. It turned out that both follow on hatch generations (the better and even better) were already known and actually already in the shipyard BEFORE we were commissioned with the original "not so good" scuttles. The changes (new scuttles) had been ordered as upgrades as the earlier ships in the class were built and delivered but it was easier for the Navy to build/accept us with the crappy older style scuttles and then change them out later.
 
The EMALS problem has been widely reported. I’m not smart enough to understand how a launch system that doesn’t work replaced time proven and reliable steam.
I don't know all of the details but the steam catapults are notoriously "maintenance intensive" and put a huge load onto the steam system onto a ship. Sending that much steam that far from the engineering spaces is kind of a design nightmare as well. There is a lot of benefit to moving this to an electric operation just as the main engines on a lot of newer ships are going to electric as well Have the engineering plant (in this case nuclear) drive generators and then route the resultant power to ship propulsion or the myriad of other uses like heating and the galley that are currently fed by many miles of steam piping.
 
They will fix the EMALS system. Steam catapults were new once, too. They can reset faster and they don't leave a huge cloud of steam (and water) everywhere. I like them. Of course, I liked the V-22 when everyone said they would never get them to work, too. What do I know? :D
 
You know what? That article also fails to mention that the Ford is fully capable of launching and recovering stuff other than those fancy-schmancy F-35 Lightnings with her EMAL system. Watch this Super Hornet launch (no steam :))


You want to talk screwed up, let's talk about those eleven (11) elevators. Only two (2) of them are functional. The SecNav said that they would be working by July or the President could fire him. Now it looks like October. I guess he's probably working on the old curriculum vitae, about now.
 
Did I miss something here? I thought the Navy versions were STOL aircraft that don't need a catapult.
 
Did I miss something here? I thought the Navy versions were STOL aircraft that don't need a catapult.

No, the Marines are flying the STOVL version (F-35B), but the Navy version (the F-35C), is not STOL.
 
Also, when you take off in a STOVL (or V/STOL, for that matter) aircraft, it's a lot better if you can do it like a standard aircraft (use all the runway), because you use less fuel doing it.
AV-8B Harriers are often recovered on carriers vertically, but almost never launched that way (even though they are capable of it).

And that is the limit of my knowledge on that subject. :D
 
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