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President Trump has ordered the Navy to strip out the new electromagnetic catapults from future aircraft carriers and return to steam-powered systems that have launched fighter jets into the sky for generations.
Mr. Trump released the “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base” memo Thursday evening. The directive orders Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide a plan within 60 days for replacing the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators on the USS Doris Miller — a fourth-generation Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered super carrier set to begin construction this year — with steam and hydraulic systems.
A steam catapult uses high-pressure steam to drive a piston that launches a jet along a track beneath the flight deck. The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS, uses energy drawn from the ship’s nuclear reactors that is discharged in a rapid pulse to create a magnetic field that propels the jet off the carrier.
Mr. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for EMALS catapults. In an interview with Time magazine during his first administration, he relayed how Navy officials told him they were moving on with EMALS despite initial challenges during its development process.
Mr. Trump told them they were going to stick with steam for future aircraft carrier catapults. “The digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money, and it’s no good,” he said.
The new directive orders the Pentagon to restore capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base by using “proven, reliable and affordable technologies and ship designs.”
“The United States Navy has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays and cancellations,” the memo states.
The USS Gerald R. Ford launched more than 12,200 aircraft with EMALS during an 11-month deployment that ended in May. The carrier was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for the critical role it played in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and its missions in the Middle East as part of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran.
Naval analysts say retrofitting Gerald R. Ford-class carriers with steam catapults instead of EMALS would be impossible without a total structural and engineering teardown. The model was designed from the keel up for an all-electric architecture.
Steam catapults require massive, high-pressure piping routed from the engine room to the flight deck. But those spaces on the Ford-class vessels are used for other needs, such as expanded crew quarters and extra ammunition storage.
Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral who once commanded the USS George Washington carrier strike group, said any decision to revert to steam catapults on Ford-class carriers would be “illogical, inefficient and a waste of money.”
Adm. Montgomery, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said it would be impossible to swap out electromagnetic catapults on the vessels currently under construction — the USS John F. Kennedy and the USS Enterprise — or the USS Doris Miller, which is scheduled to begin construction this year. The effort would have to start with CVN-82, the USS William J. Clinton, which is slated to start work later in the decade, he said.
“Even for those ships, this shift back to steam catapults could easily be an engineering train wreck. The disruption could well be measured in years,” Adm. Montgomery told The Washington Times. “I know EMALS installation has not been a smooth affair, but the efficient solution going forward is not to revert to steam.”
The last aircraft carrier to be built with steam catapults was the USS George H.W. Bush, which entered the fleet in 2009.
Naval Air Systems Command said EMALS was designed to expand the operational capacity of Ford-class carriers by providing the Navy with the capability of launching all current and future platforms, from lightweight drones to heavy strike fighters.
“This technology permits a high degree of computer control, monitoring and automation,” the organization, known as NAVAIR, said in a statement.
A former Navy pilot who holds a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, Sen. Mark Kelly said he has launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times.
“Even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships. Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best — ballrooms, bankruptcy and b———-,” the Arizona Democrat said on X.
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