The Ford-Class Is Not Perfect: The Gerald R. Ford supercarrier has 23 new technologies, but some aren’t that technically challenging – at least in theory.
Take the toilets, the construction of which should have been easy and straightforward. Not so on the Gerald Ford.
The “heads” or toilets in 2020 and their underlying sewage system clogged in an “unexpected and frequent” manner.
Ship workers had to use an expensive acid wash to the tune of $400,000 each time that a toilet was stuck.
The toilets were supposed to work like those on a commercial airplane but they became an embarrassing problem. And even though the remedy was so pricey, the Navy had no plans to change the toilet design that serves over 4,000 people on the floating air bases.
Elevators Didn’t Work as Planned on Ford-Class
The ship’s eleven Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWEs) went through growing pains five years ago when only two were operational.
The other nine took an additional two years to finish. The majority of them were not going to be fixed when the Ford left dry-dock and the Navy wanted to have four total AWEs finished by them.
This came up in a Congressional hearing and was considerably embarrassing for those overseeing the construction. Without the AWEs, airplanes could not make it on to the flight deck and the entire carrier would be combat ineffective.
Supposed to Be a Big Improvement Over the Nimitz-class
The elevators are designed to use electromagnetic propulsion and they are meant to increase the sortie rate for airplane launch by 25 to 30 percent over the Nimitz-class, but they were not ready for flight deck operations when promised.
They were supposed to be 1.5 times faster than the cable-pulled elevators of the Nimitz-class.
“As of July 2019, up to 70 elevator doors and 17 elevator hatches associated with the AWEs simply did not work because of how the ship’s structure had grown and changed around them physically over time, adding protrusions that meant they could not open or be accessed properly in some cases,” according to Bloomberg.
One of the problems with the whole design of the Ford was that construction began when the technology aboard the ship was not fully functional – like the AWEs, which also had an unspecified software system go on the fritz.
The Navy even considered testing some AWEs on land before they were installed on the carrier. The AWEs were finally completed and all were operational in 2021.
Aircraft Launch System Was Difficult to Install
Then, the new catapult and arresting gear was a challenge to install. These are electrically powered and controlled but were not ready to launch and recover the F-35C Lightning II when needed. The Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) is supposed to launch warplanes 30 percent faster than the Nimitz-class. Plus, there were problems with the radar and propulsion system.
“We’ve had 23 new technologies introduced on that ship, as you know,” U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Michael Gilday responded to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2019. “Of those, four were immature when we commissioned Ford in 2017.”
“It’s the elevators, I think, that is the remaining hurdle to get over to get that ship at sea,” he added. “This doesn’t change the fact that the Navy still has a significant ways to go before the Ford’s other critical systems are meeting the required performance targets.”
Delay It Until a New National Security Team Enters the Picture
One thing the Navy tried to do as a workaround was to designate future maintenance periods as the time when it would rectify the problems so construction could continue on other aspects of the ship.
It was thought this remedy would not create any more delays at the time. But this was a questionable idea and amounted to kicking the can down the road to the new Biden administration and a different Secretary of the Navy.
All of these challenges made the Ford project more than $3 billion over budget from original cost estimates. “Here are the facts: The USS Ford will be six years delayed in its initial deployment, which causes incredible strain on the carrier fleet,” Representative Elaine Luria said in a House Armed Services Committee hearing in 2019.
Lessons Learned with Construction on the Ford
Any new major end item as big as a supercarrier will have problems. But the Ford has been a cautionary tale. The final cost for the ship was $13.3 billion. The follow-on carriers for the Ford-class will not be as expensive, but the Navy spent $2.1 billion on the program this fiscal year.
The next Ford-class carrier of the family will be the USS John F. Kennedy. That vessel will cost $11 billion, a noteworthy improvement over the Gerald R. Ford.
The Navy has learned painful lessons with the Ford. Namely, it may want to test the technology successfully off the ship before it is installed rather than trying to evaluate it concurrently with the rest of the build-out. The problem with the toilets, elevators, launch and recovery systems, plus other components of the ship had to go through a period of stops and starts before they were ready. This was embarrassing for the Navy when admirals and civilian leadership had to face Congress, and “dog ate my homework” excuses ensued.
The John F. Kennedy should be ready this year. It was supposed to be given the green light in 2024, but there were problems with the Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar. The Kennedy will eventually join the Pacific fleet and be used to blunt the power of China’s aircraft carrier program. Let’s see if it can meet that challenge along with the Ford to replace the Nimitz-class effectively.
About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
