March 20, 2023:
At the end of 2022 the first of the new American Ford class CVN (nuclear-powered aircraft carrier) finally left for its long delayed operational stress test cruise. This means two months at sea, operating as a fully functional aircraft carrier. Unfortunately this cruise revealed more equipment flaws, the main ones being continued problems with EMALS (the catapults) and arrestor gear. That was not expected as the recent repairs to four JBD (Jet Blast Deflectors) mounted on the flight deck were monitored and found to have worked. The JDBs are relatively ancient tech, first introduced in the 1950s as more powerful jet aircraft became standard on aircraft carriers and deck crews needed protection from the dangerous blats of heat coming out of jet engines as the aircraft prepared to take off.
In August 2022 the Ford JBDs were found to have defective components that corroded and caused JBDs to fail. Substandard components have long been a problem in shipbuilding, especially when it comes to warships. These require a lot of exotic components not found on commercial vessels. Suppliers will often deliver substandard parts, either because of incompetence or attempts at fraud. This is another item on the long list of failures by the navy shipbuilding bureaucracy. The Ford-class ships are not exceptional when it comes to these problems, just the most expensive ship plagued by these problems.
There seemed to be no end of problems that delayed this operational stress test cruise, which is meant to demonstrate that the Ford, the first of a new class of carriers, is ready for decades of service. The stress test cruise showed that the Ford could operate under simulated combat conditions, but not as effectively as existing Nimitz class CVNs. Nimitz uses older tech while the Fords were equipped with updated versions of many key items, some of which didn’t perform as expected and, of those, some were predicted to fail with those predictions ignored. There were several reasons for this, starting with poorly thought out new technology that was not adequately tested before being accepted for installation on the Ford. The flawed items included new catapults, arrestors systems and elevators that brought munitions to the flight deck where they were attached to aircraft. There were some other problems with the radars and engines, but these proved easier to fix than the flight deck equipment. The JBDs were not new tech and failures were the result of substandard parts. There may be other substandard components in the Ford that will not perform reliably for as long as expected.
The growing list of problems has grown and the delays have kept the Ford from entering service. The original deployment date was 2018 and many of the delays involved getting all the problems resolved for the 2022 cruise. Until 2021, it was feared that 2024 might be a more realistic deployment date.
Many delays were avoided by borrowing components from those stockpiled for the second Ford-class carrier, the Kennedy. None of the borrowed parts are exotic, but the Ford did not have enough available to deal with all the needed modifications and repairs required to meet the 2022 deployment date. The parts problem was resolved in time to meet the 2022 deadline, or so it was thought.
Ford has successfully completed many tests so far. Ford underwent the three required FSST (Full Ship Shock Trials) test explosions in mid-2021 and examination of the Ford after the last explosion was described as successful, with less damage than expected. The Ford had developed a reputation for being the cause of unwanted firsts. This applies to the frequent delays in carrying out the Ford FSST. In early 2020 the navy asked for another delay in performing mandated shock tests because it was feared that, while most of the ship could probably handle the explosion, this would damage some of the equipment with problems that were still being fixed. An FSST was supposed to reveal what equipment was not sufficiently built or installed to handle shock as well as confirming that the hull and ship can handle the stress.
One of those sensitive systems was the new AWE (Advanced Weapons Elevators). These high-speed elevators were more sensitive to shock damage. The navy wanted to delay shock tests until the second Ford-class carrier entered service in the mid-2020s because, it admitted, it was unsure how badly shock tests would damage new systems and design features unique to the Ford class. Five of the seven elevators were fixed by the time the first shock test took place. Work was still under way with one of the radar systems that was not at risk because of FSST. The results of the first shock test were reassuring, but did add to the list of replacement components that the Ford builders did not have handy, thus the need to borrow those components from the Kennedy rather than wait for new ones to be manufactured and delivered.
A ship, especially a warship that has a lot of problems, is often referred to as a cursed ship. The USS Ford, the first of the class, has become a major disaster rather than a more effective new ship design. The number and severity of problems are certainly cursed at often enough by those who built or now serve on the Ford. It was not supposed to be that way.
Several innovative new technologies were supposed to have made the Fords more effective and cheaper to operate than the previous Nimitz class. Two of those new technologies; EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) catapults and the new AAG (Advanced Arresting Gear) that handles landings more effectively, were disappointing. The navy believes it has these problems solved and has carried out 10,000 launches with the problem-prone EMALS and AAG. One thing the first cruise provides is more practice for launch with recovery crews, and that worked this time.
The AWE high-speed electromagnetic ammunition elevators, for getting explosive items to the deck more quickly, failed multiple times. All the elevators are now operational and able to move more munitions from the magazines to the flight deck twice as quickly as the elevators used on the previous Nimitz CVNs.
There are lesser problems with the nuclear propulsion system, the new dual (X and S) band radar and several other systems have all combined to make the Ford unable to do the job it was designed for. The propulsion and radar problems were fixed.
The Ford flaws also caused some unexpected modifications to the new F-35C stealth fighter. This made it possible for the F-35C, the model designed for carrier operations on the existing Nimitz class CVNs, to survive using the cranky landing equipment unique to the Fords. Eventually the navy compiled a list of 60,000 “lessons learned” while building and trying to get the Ford ready for service. That ultimately meant Ford was four years behind schedule.
As of early 2020 the navy believed the EMALS problems were solved. Just to be sure the Ford underwent months of intensive use to confirm that the capability and reliability problems EMALS suffered from were indeed fixed. Many EMALS problems were fixed but some major ones remained. The worst of these is the fact that if one EMALS catapult develops problems, all four EMALS catapults are out of service until the malfunctioning one is fixed. That was not a problem with steam catapults. Testing and tinkering with EMALS had, by 2021, led to over 8,000 successful launches with EMALS and recoveries with AAG. Despite that, more work was required before the EMALS could match and then exceed the steam catapult when it came to handling heavy use, like during combat operations. An EMALS failure now only puts two catapults out of service until the problem is found and fixed. The two-month cruise is a final test to see if the EMALS is reliable enough for heavy use.
Fixing the AWE weapons elevators was still underway at the time of the FSST. At that point all eleven of the elevators were “moving”, which was progress, but several of them were still not certified for regular use. By the end of 2021, all elevators were for service. That was tested when all eleven elevators were used to load 1,200 tons of munitions into the magazines. This required 1,400 trips by the elevators over nearly three days. This was much faster than using the older elevators found in the Nimitz.
The older elevator design, used successfully for decades on existing Nimitz class carriers, moves up to 2.3 tons of ammo from the magazines to the deck at a speed of 30 meters (100 feet) a minute. The new elevators each move 10.9 tons to the deck at 45 meters a minute. The new elevators were meant to increase the number of combat sorties by 30 percent over 24 hours. At the end of 2018, the navy said all the elevators would be working by July 2019. That did not happen because it turned out the elevators were not built to spec and major repairs were still underway to fix that. This was a problem that could have been avoided if the navy had built an elevator ashore to test the design before proceeding with the construction of the carrier. That was predicted would be a mistake and it was. Many of the problems with the current errors are because construction was sloppy and not caught by quality control personnel.
The nuclear propulsion system problems were the kind that only get discovered once the ship is at sea for an extended period. To a certain extent that is also true with the new dual-band radar. The EMALS problems were more fundamental and even though a test EMALS was installed on land first and tested, it was not tested thoroughly enough. The AAG landing arrestor system also used new technology like EMALS and performed poorly at sea for the same reasons; sloppy design and testing. The AAG is now considered reliable. There are still questions about how well EMALS will perform once the Ford is declared ready for deployment. That means heading overseas with its Carrier Task Group escorts and operating at least as effectively as the older Nimitz class carriers it is to replace.
The nuclear reactor problems were fixed but there were still problems with the dual-band radar. In the meantime, the next Ford class carrier will revert to the two separate radar systems instead of the theoretically more efficient and less-expensive new design.
Some of the F-35C problems were minor in comparison. Sturdier jet blast deflectors had to be installed to deal with much higher heat levels generated. It was necessary to rearrange space on the hangar deck to provide secure limited access areas for work on highly classified F-35 components. The needed F-35C mods have already been made, tested, and approved on one Nimitz class carrier. This problem was mainly allocating enough time and money to do it for the first Ford class carrier and all subsequent ones.
The Ford is now six years late. Much of those delays could have been avoided if many of these new technologies were not installed on the first of the Ford class. Originally these new technologies were to be introduced separately in the first three Fords. Those early CVNs could have the new tech installed during the major refurbishment/upgrade periods that take carriers out of service for a year or more every decade.
Before construction began on the USS Ford it was decided to try and save some money by introducing all this new tech in the first ship. That may still produce cost savings in the long run, but in the short run it exposes the navy and the shipyards that build its ships to more criticism for poor management and shoddy construction and testing practices. That is nothing new, it’s been happening more and more since the 1970s. That is a key problem that has not been fixed and keeps getting worse.
It wasn’t until February 2018 that the navy confirmed that it was having major problems with the design and construction of its new EMALS catapults, then installed only in the newly completed USS Ford (CVN 78) and eventually the three other Ford-class carriers under construction. During the first sea trials, the Ford used EMALS heavily, as would be the case in combat and training operations, and found EMALS less reliable than the older steam catapult. EMALS was also more labor-intense to operate and put more stress on launched aircraft than expected. Worse, due to a basic design flaw, if one EMALS catapult became inoperable, the other three catapults could not be used in the meantime as was the case with steam catapults. This meant that the older practice of taking one or more steam catapults offline for maintenance or repairs while at sea was not practical with the EMALs design. The navy admitted that in combat if one or more catapults were rendered unusable, they remained that way until it was possible to shut down all four catapults for repairs.
The landing and recovery system also failed far more frequently than with steam catapults. In effect, these problems with launching and recovering aircraft made the Fords much less effective than the older CVNs. The navy has long had a growing problem with developing new ships and technology and the Ford is the worst example to date.
Some of the problems with EMALS were of the sort that could be fixed while the new ship was in service. That included tweaking EMALS operation to generate less stress on aircraft and modifying the design of EMALS and reorganizing how sailors use the system to attain the smaller number of personnel required for catapult operations. But the fatal flaws involved basic reliability. An EMALS catapult was supposed to have a breakdown every 4,100 launches but even after some initial fixes, in heavy use, EMALS failed every 400 launches. By the end of 2017, the Navy concluded that an EMALS equipped carrier had only a seven percent chance of successfully completing a typical four-day “surge”; which involves maximum aircraft launches for a major combat operation. Ford had only a 70 percent chance of completing a one-day surge operation. That was mainly because when one EMALS catapult went down all four were inoperable. In effect, the Ford-class carriers are much less capable of performing in combat than their predecessors. The navy said it would come up with solutions and it eventually did. Those fixes have been implemented and tested. The 2022 cruise will determine if EMALS is able to operate as effectively as existing steam catapults. Until that is validated the new Ford carrier is less useful than older CVNs.
There were no easy solutions. The most worrisome part of this is the apparent inability of Navy shipbuilding and design experts to come up with a solution for the problem they created. This EMALS catastrophe was avoidable and the problems should have been detected and taken care of before the Ford was on sea trials.
The EMALS disaster calls into question the ability of the navy to handle new, untried, technologies. That is not a new problem and has been around since World War II. In retrospect, not enough was done to test and address what are now obvious problems. The current solution was to delay the moment of truth if possible and then conclude that it was unclear exactly how it happened but that measures would be taken to see that it never happens again. That approach is wearing thin because more people understand it is just a cover for the corruption and mismanagement that has been developing within the industries that build warships. The navy has been having a growing number of similar problems with the design of the LCS, the DDG 1000 and a lot of smaller systems.
Meanwhile, there is a critical need for new carriers. The first ship of the new class of carriers, the Ford is about the same length (333 meters/1,092 feet) and displacement (100,000 tons) as the previous Nimitz class, but looks different. The most noticeable difference was the island set closer to the stern (rear) of the ship. The internal differences are much more obvious, including the power generation and electrical system. The Nimitz ships are rapidly wearing out and with the EMALS disaster, the Navy had to fix the problems or be forced to improvise and do without for a decade or more.
The Fords were not just replacements for the aging Nimitz class; they were designed to be cheaper to operate. There is a lot more automation and smaller crews. The Ford will be the first modern American warship built without urinals. There are several reasons for this. The Ford will have a smaller, by at least 20 percent, crew and more of them will be women. Currently, about ten percent of American warship crews are women, but the Ford crew will be at least 15 percent female. Since women sleep in all-female dormitories ("berthing areas"), a toilet ("head") will now be attached to each berthing area instead of being down the hall. Moreover, berthing areas will be more spacious because of the smaller crew and hold a third to half as many bunks as previous carriers. Finally, drain pipes for urinals more frequently get clogged than those coming from toilets. Eliminating the urinals means less work for the plumbers. There are a lot of other visible changes to enhance habitability and make long voyages more tolerable.
Before the EMALS crisis, the Ford was expected to cost nearly $14 billion. About 40 percent of that is for designing the first ship of the class, so the actual cost of the first ship (CVN 78) itself will be at least $9 billion and about the same for subsequent ships of the class. Except, that is, for the additional cost of fixing unexpected crises like the EMALS and high-speed ammo elevators. Against this, the navy expects to reduce the carrier's lifetime operating expenses by several billion dollars because of greatly reduced crew size. Compared to the current Nimitz class carriers, which cost over $5 billion each, the Fords will feel, well, kind of empty because of the automation and smaller crews. There will also be more computer networking, and robots, reducing the number of people (6,000) constantly moving around inside a Nimitz class carrier. The most recent Nimitz class ships have a lot of this automation already but adding EMALS was considered too expensive because of the major engineering changes to the power plant and electrical systems.
As early as 2018 the navy realized it needed a plan to deal with major delays in getting the USS Ford, and the other three Fords under construction, into service before older CVNs were scheduled to retire. Currently only two Fords have been built and the second one (the Kennedy) is still fitting-out (having all its equipment installed and tested), and will not be ready for service until 2024. In mid-2019 the U.S. announced that it was not going to retire the aircraft carrier Truman (CVN-75), which entered service in 1998. Two months earlier the decision had been made to retire the Truman to save the cost of its mid-life upgrade and refueling (of the nuclear reactors). The mid-life upgrade costs $3.5 billion and takes five years to complete. At that point, Truman would be able to operate another 25 years. That would come to $20 billion in operating costs. By retiring the Truman, the navy would save about $24 billion over 30 years and that money would be used to build new, smaller, ships and buy new weapons. Retiring Truman early also allowed the navy to order and build two new Ford class CVNs at once, which would save time and money.
The decision to keep Truman in service was not about money, but the fact that the new Ford class CVNs faced major problems that delayed these ships from entering service. Keeping the Truman was also about the seemingly intractable problems the navy has building ships and developing new designs. Keeping the Truman is seen as a positive move towards fixing some fundamental management problems. As of 2023, the plan to keep Truman in service means the Truman is going through the mid-life refueling operation that includes making repairs and installing updates. The five-year long refueling process is underway as of 2023 and will be completed by 2027.