USS Gerald Ford
Bloomberg: Navy’s $12.9 Billion Carrier Isn’t Ready for Warfare, Memo Says
* USS Gerald Ford’s key systems have reliability issues
* Aircraft launch and delivery systems may need to be redesigned
The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier isn’t ready for warfare.
The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford -- the most expensive warship ever built -- may struggle to launch and recover aircraft, mount a defense and move munitions, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester. On-board systems for those tasks have poor or unknown reliability issues, according to a June 28 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.
“These four systems affect major areas of flight operations,” Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, wrote Pentagon and Navy weapons buyers Frank Kendall and Sean Stackley. “Unless these issues are resolved, which would likely require redesigning” of the aircraft launch and recovery systems “they will significantly limit the CVN-78’s ability to conduct combat operations,” Gilmore wrote, using a technical name for the carrier.
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WNU Editor: This leaked memo .... if accurate .... is stunning news. Even though we are in the middle of summer, expect be a lot of questions being asked in the coming weeks.
4 comments:
How is it "stunning news",
The Ford was designed and built according to "concurrence theory", ( same as the F-35) in the belief that highly experimental technologies would be fully developed and mature by the time they were scheduled to be installed.
The Ford Program has from the start fallen behind schedule, been grossly over budget and had to "bandaid" technical and technology issues day after day, year after year.
They were installing the EMC on the Ford, at the same time that the test bed EMC on dry ground was alternatly just making a humming noise, or ripping aircraft into pieces and flinging them into the sky.
Well, no real surprise. I worked all my life for the defense industry ( air , navy, land and space) and I never see a program working well at the beginning, especially when there is very new stuff. It will take time....and money.
Yep and will hopefully one day prove the naysayers wrong and allow the u.s to lay seige to her enemies on the other side of the globe.
Jay. I know there has been problems with this new aircraft carrier. I have posted enough posts on the subject this past year .... even quoting Sen. McCain on how catastrophic and expensive this program has become. But .... they were promising only a few months ago that they had a handle on all of this .... sigh .... another broken promise and gullible me fell for it .... again.
Jac ... yup .... time and a lot more money will solve it.
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