Gerald R. Ford Class CVN

Amazing how much more quiet it is, lol. Not that it matters when in operation you have the plane's turbines at full shriek, but still a huge difference from the old steam cats.
 
http://gcaptain.com/costliest-ship-ever/#.VXw-Ek1_mM8

Very stormy water ahead.
 
sferrin said:
Grey Havoc said:
http://gcaptain.com/costliest-ship-ever/#.VXw-Ek1_mM8

Very stormy water ahead.
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"Costliest ship evah" twice by the end of the first sentence. That alone should tell one not to expect objectivity.
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So since the beginning of one clubbing another with a femur of an animal and then one carved the first flint spear head someone was writing "wow that is now the costliest weapons EVAH!"
 
bobbymike said:
sferrin said:
Grey Havoc said:
http://gcaptain.com/costliest-ship-ever/#.VXw-Ek1_mM8

Very stormy water ahead.
Click to expand...

"Costliest ship evah" twice by the end of the first sentence. That alone should tell one not to expect objectivity.
Click to expand...
So since the beginning of one clubbing another with a femur of an animal and then one carved the first flint spear head someone was writing "wow that is now the costliest weapons EVAH!"
Click to expand...

Just a lame attempt to fabricate controversy where there is none. Yellow "journalism" at it's finest.
 
Moose said:
Amazing how much more quiet it is, lol. Not that it matters when in operation you have the plane's turbines at full shriek, but still a huge difference from the old steam cats.
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But eliminating the evocative sound of an engine pop stalling due to steam ingestion really makes it worthwhile!
 
Nice videos of cart launches, one of which skips.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a16066/navy-railgun-emals-launch/
 
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/07/02/navy-launches-new-affordability-plan-for-ford-class-carriers/
 
http://www.navytimes.com/story/breaking-news/2015/08/11/pentagon-directs-shock-tests-carrier-ford/31479077/
 
http://hamptonroads.com/2015/09/aircraft-carrier-gerald-r-ford-sea-trials-delayed-2-months

The Associated Press
© September 23, 2015

NORFOLK

The Navy says sea trials for its next generation aircraft carrier could be delayed up to two months.

In a statement, the Navy says the delay is due to a setback in its shipboard testing program aboard the future Gerald R. Ford.

The nearly $13 billion ship is being built in Newport News and is about 93 percent complete.

The Navy says it is unclear how pushing back the start of sea trials may delay the ship's delivery date. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is currently scheduled to be delivered to the Navy on March 31, 2016.

The Navy says it won't know if the delivery date will change until the ship's testing at sea is complete.
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I wonder how many times they're going to recycle that story? I've been seeing stories about a "2 month delay" for about a month now. (Not picking on you, they all do it.)
 
http://news.usni.org/2016/03/18/industry-pushing-congress-for-cvn-80-and-81-block-buy-research-for-shipbuilding-efficiency
 
bobbymike said:
http://news.usni.org/2016/03/18/industry-pushing-congress-for-cvn-80-and-81-block-buy-research-for-shipbuilding-efficiency
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They won't do that. Makes too much sense. If they actually sat down and figured out how much it costs them to buy things one-at-a-time McCain would leap to the nearest soapbox, megaphone in hand. On top of that they probably get hammered on expediting costs because they wait as long as possible to buy something. Cha-ching.
 
An intriguing look at the analysis of alternatives that preceded selection of the Ford class design attributes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZANzRbGJKY&list=PLfdHug08PnsTWiJXmuNVC8CyuDmgsLmZ9
 
The longer lecture by Manvel is very interesting. Would love to get hold of his briefing slides. The lineup to 35 design concepts makes for some interesting ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjvNCFXCjs
 
Advancing the state of the art in the world of the mundane. I wonder if the old fashioned cable elevators were maintenance hogs or had increased risk of electrical shorts. I haven't heard of the aircraft elevators being converted to linear motors. Maybe the cantilever geometry makes it more difficult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNQAJuEvbAQ
 
From General Atomics ( http://www.ga.com/aag-program-successfully-completes-first-aircraft-arrestment )
AAG Program Successfully Completes First Aircraft Arrestment

San Diego, CA, 01 April 2016 - General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced today the first successful completion of an aircraft arrestment made with the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) March 31. GA-EMS, in collaboration with the U.S. Navy, conducted the arrestment of an F/A-18E Super Hornet at the Runway Arrested Landing Site (RALS) located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, in Lakehurst, New Jersey. AAG is a state-of-the-art turbo-electric system designed for controlled and reliable deceleration during aircraft recovery operations on carriers.

“The first aircraft arrestment marks a major milestone in demonstrating AAG performance and capability,” stated Scott Forney, President of GA-EMS. “This also represents the culmination of many man-hours of design and development efforts, and a definitive step toward bringing this transformational technology into the next phase of testing and optimization.”

“More than 1,200 successful dead load arrestments have been completed at the Jet Car Test Site in Lakehurst, New Jersey,” stated Dean Key, Director, Launch and Recovery Production Programs and AAG Design and Development. “Now, with the arrestment of aircraft, we take an important step in verifying the dynamic controls and system performance as a whole. We’re extremely proud of this accomplishment, and are excited to continue down this path of success as the AAG system undergoes additional aircraft arrestment testing, and demonstration activity.”

AAG is installed aboard Pre-Commissioning Unit Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), and is scheduled for installation on the future John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), which is currently under construction. The company’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which uses electromagnetic technology to launch aircraft from the deck of naval aircraft carriers, is also installed and undergoing dead load testing on CVN 78. In addition to AAG, EMALS is scheduled for installation on CVN 79.
 
I could hear some bitterness in Manvel's voice when he mentioned the bush administration screwing up the ship program by merging a 2 step approach into 1 which now adds cost and delay to the ship.
 
donnage99 said:
I could hear some bitterness in Manvel's voice when he mentioned the bush administration screwing up the ship program by merging a 2 step approach into 1 which now adds cost and delay to the ship.
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Probably cheaper in the long run. Now you won't have some one-off.
 
sferrin said:
donnage99 said:
I could hear some bitterness in Manvel's voice when he mentioned the bush administration screwing up the ship program by merging a 2 step approach into 1 which now adds cost and delay to the ship.
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Probably cheaper in the long run. Now you won't have some one-off.
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Cheaper if you compare the cost of the hybrid hulls' lifecycle to the cost of a Ford lifecycle, but that is due to the savings of a full Ford suite of improvements versus a hybrid Ford-Nimitz not because of being a one-off. The limited number of carriers and their prolonged build schedule makes hull-to-hull differences less problematic, which is why the Nimitz class has 3 subclasses and no 2 are really identical. As planned, the transition was supposed to cover hulls 77, 78, and 79. So while 78 would in theory have more compromises versus the finished product, 77 would be an improvement over the one we have. Beyond the up-front savings of the gradual transition, the plan would also have given us a chance to catch issues like the DBR overreach and the AAG gremlins earlier and address them in a more timely and cost-effective manner.
 
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/commentary/2016/04/21/12th-us-aircraft-carrier-necessary-increasingly-dangerous-world/83288656/
 
https://blog.usni.org/2016/04/29/fixing-navy-acquisition

Support for Reform? The Case of CVN-78

Vandroff and McGrath cite the case of the Ford class aircraft carriers to support their claim that their proposed acquisition reform is needed. They argue that the Ford (CVN-78) acquisition program would not have experienced major cost and schedule problems if former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his staff had left the initial acquisition plan of the CVN-78 program office alone. As current Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN[RD&A]) Sean Stackley testified to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in October 2015, the initial June 2000 acquisition strategy for CVN-78 and its successor (CVN-79) was cautious and evolutionary. The new class of carriers would be developed in stages, from CVN-77 through CVN-79. New and revolutionary technologies, such as the dual-band radar and the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), would be proven before they were designed into CVN-78.[13] Other new technologies would not be incorporated into the new carrier class until CVN-79.

130126-N-ZZ999-001-350x233.jpg

Construction of Gerald R. Ford in 2013. U.S. Navy photo courtesy Huntington Ingalls Industries.
​

This deliberate, risk-reduction approach was superseded in 2002 when Secretary Rumsfeld directed the Navy to reassess it. The Navy then chose to advance the timetable for the installation of new technologies, placing what were considered to be systems of high technological risk into CVN-78.[14] That plan was approved in December 2002 in a program decision memorandum (PDM) signed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The plan was affirmed in the April 2004 operational requirements document (ORD) for the Ford class carriers, and an acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) that same month approved low-rate initial production of the first three ships of the class. The step up from CVN-77 to CVN-78 was dramatically increased; the risks to the program increased accordingly.

The basic subsystems of CVN-78 had not been well defined when the program passed that major technical and fiscal review in April 2004. Given the perturbations made in the program by officials at a level above that of the Secretary of the Navy, the review process could not be thorough. As ASN(RD&A) Stackley explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the CVN-78 program office therefore had to cope with the responsibility of directing a shipbuilding effort where a number of the “developmental systems introduced on CVN 78” were not technically mature. Stackley told the senators that “In 2006, the Navy identified 10 of these new systems . . . as critical technologies which posed the highest ship integration risk.” An extensive series of tests of these systems identified “design deficiencies,” and once the problems had been pinpointed they had to be overcome, and overcoming them resulted “in delays and cost growth to certain systems and equipments.”[15] In plain terms, pulling all the systems together was a knotty and very time-consuming task. The complexity of the task, and the amount of time it took to complete it, ran up the estimated bill and knocked the schedule off its tracks.

The case of CVN-78 illustrates the strength and the weakness of the acquisition reform proposals put forward by Captain Mark Vandroff and Bryan McGrath. If the Secretary of the Navy had been in legal charge of the CVN-78 program, then the Office of the Secretary of Defense might not have altered the Navy’s acquisition strategy. But can we be sure of that? The program was so expensive, so complex, and yet so promising that there were a number of influential “stakeholders,” and it would have been difficult for them to resist encouraging a jump to a new carrier concept in one leap. How could a service secretary constrain enough of them to retain ultimate control of the program?



[13] Sean J. Stackley, ASN(RD&A), “Statement” [.pdf] before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Procurement, Acquisition, Testing and Oversight of the Navy’s Gerald R. Ford Class Aircraft Carrier Program,” Oct. 1, 2015, p. 3. For a more detailed chronology of decisions affecting the CVN-78 program, see “Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress,” by Ronald O’Rourke, Congressional Research Service, Dec. 17, 2015. Also see the Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) for the CVN 78 Class, Dec. 31, 2011.

[14] Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), “Opening Statement,” [.pdf] to receive testimony on procurement, acquisition, testing, and oversight of the Navy’s Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier program, Senate Armed Services Committee, Oct. 1, 2015, p. 2.

[15] Ibid., p. 9.
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Not a big fan of this article since it conveniently only traces CVN-78's development back to 2000.
The pre-2000 CVNX plan was far more ambitious and non-incremental and scaled back mainly for cost reasons with the post 2002 changes a reasonable attempt to balance things.

But even from 2000 onwards, CVNX-1 was always going to include EMALS and DBR.
And it was long recognized that there was no way to prove EMALS aside from at fullscale on the deck of a carrier built for it (there was a plan to retrofit CVN-68s with AAG).
DBR was to have been proven ideally on CVN-77 but mainly (and especially cost wise) on DDG-1000; the Navy missed the window for the former and we know what happened with the latter.
 
Details on construction and test status starts around 7:30 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBYXUQLZKk
 
From the CVN 78 Facebook page.

Added: video from Huntington Ingalls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldJHpMtQVyM
 

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/navy-s-12-9-billion-carrier-isn-t-ready-for-warfare-memo-says
 
"The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier isn’t ready for warfare.

The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford -- the most expensive warship ever built -- "

Gee, I wonder how this article will read. ::)
 
Testing the "Precision Aircraft Landing System". Nothing interesting until November sea trials unless they have another delay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2hwM_OkRgA
 
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navys-mighty-aircraft-carriers-plan-fight-will-under-17406
 
bobbymike said:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navys-mighty-aircraft-carriers-plan-fight-will-under-17406
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One thing about that site is they're masters of the obvious. Did they think warships would stay home if there were a chance they might get shot at in a war? Oh, Dave Majumdar, that explains it.
 
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/08/past-and-future-of-aircraft-carriers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29&utm_content=FaceBook
 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-29/pentagon-weapons-buyer-orders-review-of-new-carrier-s-troubles
https://news.usni.org/2016/08/30/pentagon-conducting-new-review-ford-carrier-program
 
http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1711759-us-carriers-deploy-new-torpedo-defense-system
 
First "fly in" Advanced Arresting Gear trap. They sure aren't releasing many videos of this thing. First actual arrestment occurred way back on March 31. The "fly in" may indicate they are now bringing in different aircraft to verify each type can use the system without problems.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4obNg2sszq0
 
Or, it could be they just got around to releasing footage.
 
sferrin said:
Or, it could be they just got around to releasing footage.
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For the fly-in test yes but not for the original arrestment of 31 October or all the subsequent developmental traps up to now. Looking back at EMAL videos, it appears to be similar in that they didn't start releasing them until they had reached the fly-in stage as well. I suppose that is to be expected but it leaves an impression of no progress being achieved. I remember numerous claims of insurmountable technical problems for EMALS until they finally started releasing videos.
 
This video dates back to June but it has a good summary of the improvements in the Ford class. Surprisingly, they left out the AAG.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsdMyi_DRL4
 
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/navy-sets-april-delivery-date-for-carrier-ford
 

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