![]() ![]() I said, 'Ah, how is it working?' 'Sir, not good. Trump added, "I said you don't use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. He said well, we're going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern. "So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He then recalled the visit to the carrier: "You know the catapult is quite important," Trump said. ![]() The president was asked in the Time interview about the future of the Ford-Class carriers, which are replacing the Nimitz-Class warships first commissioned in the mid-1970s. The commander-in-chief landed on the carrier's flight deck on Marine One, took a tour and met with sailors. Ford aircraft carrier, a roughly $13 billion warship. In March, Trump visited the USS Gerald R. A former Marine Corps captain, Grazier said the new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, on the Ford-Class carrier remains "an unproven system." "The president is very accurate to be skeptical of this component - and there are other components that he should be skeptical of the ship," Grazier told CNBC on Friday. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lowerĭan Grazier, a defense expert at the watchdog group Project On Government Oversight, back in March questioned the decision by the Navy to use the new electromagnetic launch technology instead of sticking with the steam-powered catapult system on the battle-tested Nimitz-Class carriers. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower “The president is making the commander in chief’s intent that, at some future point, we may shift back to the easier, more affordable steam catapult system,” Hendrix said.Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed the carrier project as “one of the most spectacular acquisition debacles in recent memory” in 2015. The price tag for the three Ford-class aircraft carriers ballooned from $27 billion to $36 billion in the past decade, and the project is behind schedule in part because of the EMALS system, as the Atlantic reported. He’s right to be frustrated and he’s right to step in and tell the Navy to pay greater attention to these overruns,” said Jerry Hendrix, a navy expert at the Center for a New American Security. “The president’s critique of the program is correct. It’s on the carrier already.”īut some experts say Trump’s comments, already being widely mocked among defense types, aren’t without merits, lauding in particular his push to name-and-shame vast defense cost overruns on systems like EMALS. “The operational utility of is going to be so much higher that it really doesn’t make sense to change it,” Holland told FP. Experts say it’s virtually impossible to sort out how to replace the existing EMALS system with the old steam-powered system, and that could cost billions of dollars. The Ford is already built after almost a decade in the shipyard, EMALS system and all. ![]() Many defense experts who aren’t Albert Einstein are rebuffing Trump’s claims, though.įor starters, there’s one big problem: Trump’s criticism is a few years too late. The Navy didn’t immediately respond to Foreign Policy’s request for comment or reaction, but is expected to address the commander in chief’s remarks in a statement. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.” I said, “What system are you going to be-” “Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said, “No you’re not. And I said - and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. ![]() What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.” I said, “You don’t use steam anymore for catapult?” “No sir.” I said, “Ah, how is it working?” “Sir, not good. ![]()
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