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Navy's Priciest Aircraft Carrier Delivered Without Elevators To Lift Bombs

Bamby

New member
The F-35 finally has some competition for costliest boondoggle in American military history.

According to Bloomberg, the most expensive Navy warship to date, the $13 billion Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, was delivered last year without the elevators it needed to lift bombs from below deck for loading on to fighter jets. The "advanced weapons" elevators were supposed to have been installed by the ship's delivery date of May 2017. However, technical problems have caused repeated delays to the installation. While answering questions from reporters, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer described the elevator system as "our Achilles heel."

One government analyst described the system as "just another example of the Navy pushing technology risk into design and construction, without fully demonstrating it."

The problems are raising the possibility that the Navy won't have enough money left over to bundle a third and fourth carriers into the $58 billion contract to develop the Ford class of ships. The initiative is part of the Navy's effort to expand its fleet to 355 from 284 by the mid-2030s. However, one Navy weapons buyer said "considerable progress" had been made on the Ford, including on the elevators, in a memo released back in July.

Another spokesman said six of the eleven elevators are close enough to being finished that the shipbuilder can operate them.

William Couch, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, said the elevators are "in varying levels of construction and testing."

Six are far enough along to be operated by the shipbuilder, and testing has started on two of those, he said. All 11 “should have been completed and delivered with the ship delivery,” according to Couch.

He said the contractor has corrected "all issues," including the "four uncommanded movements over the last three years that were discovered during the building, operational grooming, or testing phases."

Meanwhile, a recent segment on PBS's "Nova", a science-focused show, heralded the electromagnetic elevators as the "elevators of tomorrow", positing that, one day, our vertical travel might be facilitated by electromagnets instead of cables.

A November 2010 program on PBS’s “Nova” science series extolled the "Elevator of Tomorrow" being developed by Federal Equipment Co., a Cincinnati-based subcontractor to Huntington Ingalls.

"In the not-too-distant future the Advanced Weapons Elevator will be lifting bombs to the flight deck of a new aircraft carrier," the narrator said. "If it survives the rigors of Navy life, someday we might all be passengers on elevators powered like this one."

Doug Ridenour, president of Federal Equipment Co., said the elevator’s key technologies “have been consistently demonstrated for years” in a test unit in the company’s plant and any programming or software-related issues have been fixed.

But "shipboard integration involves many other technology insertions not controlled by" his company, he said.

Right now, that's looking like one big "if"


So we've got 535 idiots prodding and poking both China and Russia with anything they can gather and they've purchased a aircraft carrier that hasn't any means of getting munitions out of the hold and up to the airplanes...:hammer: If this wasn't such a serious and extravagantly expensive boondoggle it would be hilariously funny.....
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
In all fairness to the Navy and the USS Ford, some of the technology being implemented on the Ford is cutting edge, to say the least, and needed in order to keep the Ford class of attack carrier cutting edge over its expected life time.

The EMALS system, new style reactors with less fueling, electrical power generation, just to name a few.

We need to think ahead. What will it be like in say 2050? The USS Independence, one of the carriers I served on was obsolete in less then 40 years and required multiple extended refits and one SLEP in the 80's to make it that long. Just sayin'.

The American people going forward will not be just content to have an edge over the Chinese in naval operations and aircraft carrier capabilities. They will demand what we have now, an over whelming edge against all threats both real and perceived.
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
In all fairness to the Navy and the USS Ford, some of the technology being implemented on the Ford is cutting edge, to say the least, and needed in order to keep the Ford class of attack carrier cutting edge over its expected life time.

The EMALS system, new style reactors with less fueling, electrical power generation, just to name a few.

We need to think ahead. What will it be like in say 2050? The USS Independence, one of the carriers I served on was obsolete in less then 40 years and required multiple extended refits and one SLEP in the 80's to make it that long. Just sayin'.

The American people going forward will not be just content to have an edge over the Chinese in naval operations and aircraft carrier capabilities. They will demand what we have now, an over whelming edge against all threats both real and perceived.

I'm surprised the Obama administration didn't tell the Navy to pull the nuclear reactors and cover the flight deck with Solar panels to drive the ship and it's systems.
 

mla2ofus

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Maybe a stupid question but I know very little about carriers. Just how do the bombs delivered get in the hold??
Mike
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
Maybe a stupid question but I know very little about carriers. Just how do the bombs delivered get in the hold??
Mike

Current "transporter" technology isn't yet safe for sending ordinance safely to the hold from a transporter pad at the factory like they do on the Starship Enterprise so,,,,; I imagine they use the same "lift" elevators to get ordinance below.. OR use the flight deck elevators to do it manually with ordinance "dollies".

Sorry. it wasn't a stupid question but I felt like throwing out a stupid answer. My bad.
 

mla2ofus

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
That's OK, Franc, I always enjoy humor. It just seems to defy my logic they can't use the same elevator that hauled the ordinance down to haul it up. As said I know very little about carriers.
Mike
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ_CcoaTa50"]Ordinance transfer from the ship's magazines to the flight deck of USS Ticonderog...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame]
 
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