The U.S. Navy is considering major redesign work on the new Ford-class of aircraft carriers to better suit President Trump’s stated preferences, as the White House has gotten into ship design.
The President wants the Ford class to more closely resemble the Essex-class carriers from World War II, with the island moved forward.
Aircraft Carrier USS Gerald R. Ford Diagram. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft approaches the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), Nov. 17, 2025. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. (U.S. Navy photo)
He believes, for some reason, that they are in the wrong place.
The Navy is conducting an internal review to consider moving the multistory aircraft carrier’s command center tower, the “island,” toward the center of the vessel to better match the aesthetic of older warships.
The island sits on the ship’s starboard side of the ship and serves as the vessel’s nerve center. Inside the island, all of the flight deck operations, the tactical control of the carrier strike group, and the carrier’s navigation are run.
Hunter Stires, who was the maritime strategist to the Navy secretary, stated to The Hill, and correctly so, that aircraft carriers are built to win in combat, not to win a “beauty pageant.”
“The placement of the island on the Ford class was chosen to support the ship’s design purpose of maximizing aircraft sortie generation, which for an aircraft carrier, directly translates to combat power. A good-faith exploration of future carrier design based on real-world operational requirements is one thing,” Stires said over the weekend.
USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier or Supercarrier
“Expending millions of taxpayer dollars and the time and energy of the Navy’s engineering organizations redesigning the nation’s premier capital ship to indulge the president’s aesthetic whims is not only wasteful and abusive, but it also exemplifies President Trump’s evident contempt for America’s fighting sailors,” Stires added.
Trump Has Insisted The Navy Replaces EMALS With Steam Catapults
The president doesn’t just want to move the aircraft carrier’s island. President Trump ordered the U.S. Navy last week to scrap the modern electromagnetic catapult system on aircraft carriers used to launch fighter planes and revert to steam catapults.
Many military analysts believe that this will set back Ford-class carriers under construction for several years, and add billions to the cost of the ships.
The president directed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to submit a plan within 60 days to re-equip Ford-class aircraft carriers, such as the USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) currently under construction and slated to be delivered in 2034, with the older steam-powered catapult and hydraulic systems instead of the newer Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators.
“The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base as it expands our naval force structure,” Trump said in the released memo.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) underway on its own power for the first time. The first-of-class ship — the first new U.S. aircraft carrier design in 40 years — spent several days conducting builder’s sea trials, a comprehensive test of many of the ship’s key systems and technologies.
”It will use proven, reliable and affordable technologies and ship designs, as well as award contracts that enable purchases from foreign suppliers in the near term while simultaneously incentivizing investment in America’s shipbuilding industrial base, consistent with other major equipment purchases such as icebreakers,” the president added.
The Cost of Changing Back To Steam Catapults Would Be Prohibitive
A potential move to revert to older technologies, such as steam catapults, would be extremely costly and further delay the project. Steam catapults are no longer in production, and restarting them after 20 years would be expensive.
President Trump’s announcement and subsequent design changes could set the USS Doris Miller back until the end of the next decade, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said to CNN. The cost, he added, “will probably be into the billions.”
“The electromagnetic ones have proven themselves to be easier to operate and less expensive in terms of personnel and maintenance. So the Navy has saved $100 million a year on the Ford-class carrier,” Clark added.
General Atomics, the California-based company that has a $1.2 billion contract to build the EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) for the USS Doris Miller, warned that the decision not to proceed with EMALS on the ship “warrants careful reconsideration.”
“With nearly 50 percent of production complete, changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule and integration risks,” the company said in a release shortly after the president’s memo was released.
The Islands Were Moved Aft For A Reason
The islands on the carriers were moved further aft for a very good reason. This created more open workspace on the forward flight deck for launching and parking aircraft.
Shifting the superstructure aft opens up a larger, uninterrupted area at the front of the ship for staging aircraft. This also creates a larger forward working area, allowing crews to arm, fuel, and ready planes more quickly before launch.
Aircraft then require fewer repositioning steps to get from storage spots to the catapults.
Early conventional carriers such as the Essex class needed the island near the middle because of boiler smoke funnels. Moving to nuclear power removed those funnels, allowing designers to slide the island back.
A few years ago, Navy Rear Adm. Paul Lanzilotta, the former captain of the USS Gerald R. Ford, reiterated those reasons to The TWZ.
“If you’re parked after the island on the older ships, you need a break in the recovery in order to do that because everything we do happens very, very quickly, very efficiently.”
The Ford class is already way over budget and far behind schedule.
The president doesn’t need to slow down the process any further with very unnecessary redesign orders for the Navy over aesthetics.
About the Author: Steve Balestrieri
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications
