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The Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, is a monument to the Navy’s and defense industry’s ability to justify spending billions on unproven technologies that often deliver worse performance at a higher cost.
[...] The Navy had expected to have the ship delivered in 2014 at a cost of $10.5 billion.
Instead, because the Navy tried to develop more than a dozen new and risky technologies at the same time it was building the ship, the schedule has slipped by more than three years. And, the cost has increased to $12.9 billion -- nearly 25 percent over budget.
For all this time and money, a 2015 Defense Department operational testing report concluded that “poor or unknown reliability” of the newly designed catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators and radar could affect the Ford’s ability to generate sorties, make the ship more vulnerable to attack, or create limitations during routine operations.
The problems with the ship’s systems, including the catapult, are well-known.
But President Donald Trump still caught virtually every Pentagon watcher off guard when he told Time magazine in May that he had directed the Navy to abandon the new “digital” aircraft catapult on future Ford-class carriers. Instead he wants the Navy to revert to the proven steam catapults, which have been in use for decades. The president is correct when he says there are significant problems with the Ford’s “digital” catapult, but abandoning it in future ships will pose significant problems.
The Ford’s “digital” catapult is, in fact, the Electromagnetic Launch System, or EMALS. In the long run, it is intended to be lighter, more reliable, and less expensive than the steam system. Unfortunately, EMALS is immature technology. So far, the program has not lived up to the promises made.
Steam-powered catapults, though said to be maintenance-intensive, are proven technology. They have been in service with continuous upgrades and satisfactory reliability for more than half a century.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hopp on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:18AM (5 children)
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. How many times a day is Trump right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:20AM (4 children)
That is what makes him a conservative!
:)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:27AM
Um, yeah, favoring longstanding tradition is the very definition of conservative.
(Score: 5, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 10 2017, @07:34AM (2 children)
Thank you. I love your tweet. Love the sentiment and love the cute, cute smile. Such a sweet smile! How old are you? Are you a boy or a girl? Have you ever been in a locker room at a beauty pageant? I have. Do you know how to EMAIL? I don't. Not like Crooked Hillary. She did a lot of crooked stuff with her EMAIL system. A lot a lot. Smart lady, but crooked. Very crooked. Going to lock her up, I promise you that. Fired a guy who wouldn't help me lock her up. And some other reasons. Fired James Comey. Screw him. Screw that loser. And screw her. Screw Hillary (not literally, she's gross). She lost, big time. Because of her crooked EMAILS. I don't do anything crooked with EMAILS. Because I don't know how. Now, I've been on the Ford. And I don't understand the EMAIL system on it. You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. Or Hillary. Very smart lady, very crooked but she knows how to get away with it. Now the cyber is so big. It's becoming something that a number of years ago, short number of years ago, wasn’t even a word. Give me goddamned steam. Give me motherfucking steam! Fucking adiabatic expansion of steam, that I understand. Steam from the nuclear reactor. You know, folks, Jimmy Carter is a nuclear engineer. President Carter, great guy, he was in the Navy. And he worked with the reactors. And whatever he can do, I can do better. Much better. Give me a good, old-fashioned, steam catapult. You know the catapult is quite important. So I went on the Ford, I talked to one of the sailors. Fine young fellow, handsome kid. I said "what is this?" "Sir, this is our digital catapult system." He said "well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern cyber." I said "you don’t use steam anymore for catapult?" "No sir." I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air." It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated. And I said -- and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said "what system are you going to be -- " "Sir, we’re staying with digital." I said "no you’re not. You're going to goddamned steam," the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good. Let me tell you, folks, the Ford, the Gerald R. Ford, is a ship like no other. There is no competition for this ship. It is a monument of American might that will provide the strength necessary to ensure peace. The Ford class will expand the ability of our nation to carry out vital missions on the oceans, to project American power in distant lands. Sounds great, huh? I just made that up. But the EMAIL system is all fucked up. Cyber fucked. Beyond all recognition. Fucked up beyond all recognition, have you ever heard that expression? Because I haven't, I mean, I just made it up, just now. So, the digital catapult, the EMAIL, is fucked up. Gotta change that to steam. Which costs less. A lot, a lot less. And get on with building ships. Folks, I'm a master builder. I can build like nobody's business. Like no one you've ever seen in your life. And let me tell you, folks, our Navy is now the smallest it's been since -- believe it or not -- World War I. Don't worry. It'll soon be the largest it's been. The same boat for less money, the same ship for less money, the same aircraft for less money. That's what we do. #FuckComey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @11:33PM (1 child)
Marked as Spam!
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday June 11 2017, @01:21AM
Very unfair! I am not a spammer! #FuckComey [twitter.com] #TrumpAirlines [twitter.com] #TrumpWater [twitter.com] #TrumpResorts [twitter.com] #TrumpVineyardEstates [twitter.com] #TRUMP2020 [twitter.com] #WINNING [twitter.com] #MakeAmericaGreatAgain [twitter.com]