A model of the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) aircraft carrier on display at the Sea-Air-Space symposium in National Harbor, Maryland, in August 2021. Trump has objected to the inclusion of electromagnetic catapults on future aircraft carriers, and has sought to return to steam-powered ones, with minimal success. (US Navy/Mass Communication Spc. 3rd Class Kyleigh Williams)

Trump Might Be Steaming—but the Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers Won’t Be

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As the president seeks to redesign future aircraft carriers to reincorporate steam catapults, the US Navy appears to be proceeding with electromagnetic ones in its contracting.

There has never been a mutiny in the United States Navy, but the service appears ready to defy President Donald Trump’s August memorandum that called for future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWEs) with steam and hydraulic systems.

Trump has a harsh view of both the EMALS and AWEs that are installed on the new class of supercarriers, suggesting the systems were unreliable and that despite the benefits, the steam and hydraulic systems worked better. Naval analysts have countered that the EMALS promises improved sortie rates and would be more efficient over the service life of a carrier. The evidence seems to support the latter contention; the US Navy conducted a sortie generation rate test earlier this year, and after those exercises, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters that the EMALS sortie rate had been 120 to 130 percent........

© The National Interest