Posted on 05/25/2021 8:19:16 PM PDT by logi_cal869
For the past 1½ years, on 18 trips off the Virginia and North Carolina coasts, sailors and shipyard workers from Newport News have prepped the Navy’s newest carrier for deployment — 27% over its original budget and years behind schedule.
The costliest single item on the Department of Defense’s shopping list, the USS Gerald R Ford has been on a fast track to launch a series of new technologies intended to boost the Navy’s striking power for at least the next 50 years.
It is a fast track that started two decades ago.
[snip]
Over the past 18 months of post-delivery tests and trial, “we really started stressing the ship’s 23 new technologies, especially EMALS (the electromagnetic catapult) and AAG (advanced arresting gear),” he said.
“In 18 months, we corrected 99% of the 9,000-plus work items outstanding at ship’s delivery,” Downey said..
Each of the 11 weapons elevators is unique, with its own operating demands — a large part of what is needed for the final four is to check out how well the weapons team can work with them without any problems. The first seven have run up and down more than 14,200 times.
The carrier’s self-defense missiles and 4,500-rounds-a-minute cannon, which depend on accurate readings from its radar to hit attacking planes, missiles or ships, are certified as ready for action.
The five-phase test of those systems over the past few months, finally completed in April, also proved the much-questioned dual band radar could provide accurate target identification and tracking. Concerns that electronic interference could hinder helicopter flight operations were resolved in recent tests involving over 500 helicopter flights, and a temporary restriction for the radar during helicopter operations was eliminated.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
It looks like we finally got it (very nearly) fit to serve.
Good luck finding capable sailors to man this thing. The freaks, geeks and snowflakes Bimentia’s military is recruiting are not going to cut it.
“… 4,500-rounds-a-minute cannon…”
I can’t imagine what that would sound like. At that speed it might be more of a steady tone than “brrrrrrrp”.
75 cycles per second. A bit higher in pitch than the 60 cycle kick drum “thump”. Close to a really low “D”. Incredible.
We could be approaching an era of advanced technologies where these expensive ships, even with their defenses, could become easy targets.
In my comment, I was actually strictly referring to the ship itself.
I’m amazed that they appear to actually have worked out all the bugs. Now to find out how reliable those systems are under combat conditions.
The question of crew now looms large...
I think their biggest problem has been it’s new catapult system...
Pretty sure that’s the cycle rate of the current Phalanx gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsf38NYzo5Q
Except it looks like it's listing a little...
j/k!
The whole ship had many new forms of technology and that is why so many issues have surfaced. Not surprising and it should help the other ships in the class being built have an easier time fitting out.
The article does go into that a bit. Worth reading.
On Nimitz, back when we launched and recovered EA-3B aircraft, parking it on an outer port side spot called the ‘finger’ resulted in an immediate three degree port list.
All it seems to take now to destroy a ship is a fire in port.
“I think their biggest problem has been it’s new catapult system...”
That’s what they get for trying to save the planet.
Russian tanks didn’t have AC like ours. In an all out war they figured all the factories would be destroyed. No automatic transmission. It could be 160 degrees inside.
Wow, had to look that up. Looks like a big boy, and real hefty when at its “maximum overload take-‐off” weight (had to look that up too).
When it was parked and fully loaded on the finger, causing that three degree list, did it impose any restrictions on the operations of the ship? If that’s secret and you’d have to kill me if you told me, DON’T TELL ME! :-)
What about extortion am I missing here?
We’d try to make only port turns until the engineers could level the ship. 1987 was the last time these A/C were on our CVN. Ranger 12 hit the barricade, slid off the angle deck and sank with all seven crew.
OH GIVE ME A BREAK! What about the USS jimmy carter? I really don’t think the taxpayer should have to pay to surrender.
I would be more impressed if they only had to say, “The systems worked as promised, and the ship was delivered early.”
No, it is not simple engineering. But it is their ONLY JOB.
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