08 Oct 2020, 13:28
08 Oct 2020, 20:20
madrat wrote:22JUL2020 to 24OCT2020 was a net gross of 1,000. That's an escalation of the testing AFAICT. Eventually they want to hit 160 day, so it's a step towards that goal. Nobody else can claim these accomplishments at the moment and I don't expect them to get matched anytime soon.
"...Geurts said the crew earlier this week set a record for how many planes it caught with the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) and launched with the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) – 167 combined catapults and trap landings in one day, compared to a previous record of 135 during another recent at-sea day...." https://news.usni.org/2020/05/20/uss-fo ... ock-trials
22 Nov 2020, 01:43
23 Nov 2020, 19:25
As Supercarrier Ford Launches Largest-Ever Flight Ops, Leaders Try Out New Ways to Fight
19 Nov 2020 Hope Hodge Seck
"OFF THE COAST OF NORFOLK, Virginia -- Even for those familiar with the impressive acreage of a Nimitz-class carrier flight deck, the vastness of the Gerald R. Ford's flattop is eye-watering. While the Navy's newest class of supercarrier has the same overall footprint as the predecessor class, its use of space is different: The Ford's "island," which houses its command center, is set 140 feet further aft and has been slightly redesigned. It creates a more substantial stretch of aircraft flight line at the fore, with five usable acres compared with the Nimitz's four and a half....
...During a 12-plane Super Hornet launch and recovery period that Military.com observed, the ship's digitally controlled Advanced Arresting Gear, replacing the legacy hydraulic aircraft recovery system, operated without a hitch, with all landing aircraft catching the first or second of the system's three wires. Several aircraft were waved off as crew raced to reset the deck from a previous landing; in one case, crew members ran to free a jet that hadn't properly unhooked itself from a loop of the massive recovery cable.
Similarly, the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, which replaces the older steam-based catapult system, got planes airborne without a noticeable hitch. As recently as this summer, the system was working out bugs; on June 2, the crew of the Ford discovered an issue with the EMALS power handling system requiring a workaround, USNI News reported....
...Cummings emphasized that operating the software for the Advanced Arresting Gear in particular requires substantial on-the-job training, and sailors are still building their familiarity with it and learning how to troubleshoot issues. "The learning curve is just how to better understand the system technically, and as we get smarter about how certain [issues], and how we can clear them and get back to work. So that's the learning curves, basically work in the software," he said.
Officials said they find the speed of operations is most often limited by human elements, as the flight deck crew adapts to the rhythm of launch and recovery. The ship's current objective is to recover an aircraft every 55 seconds; already, during PDT&T, the crew has been able to get four jets airborne, from four different catapults, in the space of one minute, 47 seconds.
"We're rapidly hitting the point where the limitation on EMALS is how fast the flight deck crew can taxi aircraft in the shuttle, get us hooked up, run through our pre-launch checks, and then get the aircraft airborne," Rear Adm. Craig Clapperton, commanding officer of Carrier Strike Group 12, told reporters aboard the Ford. "What we have seen since we first came out here in March to where we are now in November, it's night and day from where we were, and it's trending in a great direction."
In January, the Ford had completed 747 aircraft launches since it was delivered to the Navy in May 2017; it now has nearly 6,000.... Before the ship ever conducts an operational deployment, it must be modified to accommodate the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, which won't happen until 2024 or 2025. And the ship's advanced weapons elevators are still only partially operational. During the underway, contractors with Newport News Shipbuilding worked to get the seventh of 11 up and running...."
Source: https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... fight.html
23 Nov 2020, 20:54
spazsinbad wrote:
In January, the Ford had completed 747 aircraft launches
23 Nov 2020, 22:37
Yeah BUTT can it land? Lots of FlightSim Videos on the interrabble show this in great crashing detail. Needs a HOOK!
Mebbe with an AARGH it can do the ARREST: only an Ozzie ANSETT can do it without a hook ffsake. 
Grr Argh LOW.mp4 [ 152.11 KiB | Viewed 18885 times ]
25 Nov 2020, 14:20
25 Nov 2020, 19:32
Aboard USS Ford: More Weapons, More Launches, Faster & Safer
25 Nov 2020 Robbin Laird
"SOMEWHERE OFF THE EAST COAST: When our aging C-2 Greyhound aircraft took off from the USS Gerald R. Ford the experience was clearly different. Propelled by the electro-magnetic system that has replaced steam catapults it was much smoother and much quicker. The new launch and landing systems provide key tools for a significant reshaping of the operational tempo for the large deck carrier.
The new launch system allows for a wider range of aircraft to operate from the carrier; the new arresting gear system can recover them. The ability to mix and match the current air fleet and the future one is significantly enhanced with EMALS, which will allow everything from F-35s to the fleet’s future unmanned aircraft to take off and land aboard the new class of carriers.
The same flexibility exists in the Advanced Arresting Gear with larger current operating wind and weight envelopes and the ability to recover future aircraft designs with minimal modifications required.
The speed of launch and recovery was on full display during our Nov. 17 visit. Currently, the Ford has two-third of its air wings on board, with two air wings and four squadrons operating from the deck. The carrier is at sea currently working what the US Navy calls cyclic operations, where strike packages are launched in clusters and then operate in the combat space to provide for the various missions done by the Navy at sea. Normally, at this stage in the certification of a new carrier, cyclic operations would not be performed.... [then lots about other changes such as weapon elevators etc.]
Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/abo ... ter-safer/
11 Dec 2020, 19:56
How a pilot who's landed on 6 different classes of aircraft carrier prepared to land on the Navy's newest flattop
12 Dec 2020 Courtney Mabeus
"...Ford was built to be adaptable as new technologies emerge. The noticeable absence of steam on the flight deck wasn't "a big deal," Norman said. "It's almost like a when you first heard an electric car pull up to a stop and then take off and you didn't hear any motor," Norman said. "You're like, 'what is that?' It was a very different experience."
Gone is the "big slam" and initial jolt of acceleration from the steam catapults, Norman said.
"Electronically, it's different," he said. "It's probably a smoother acceleration but when you're used to steam, it feels like the acceleration is really strong in the end. Right before you go over the edge of the ship, it feels like a kick in the pants. It feels stronger because it's so much stronger in the end."..."
Source: http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/how ... r-BB1bQqSf
10 Jan 2021, 07:38
Navy’s Priciest Carrier Ever Struggles to Get Jets On, Off Deck
09 Jan 2021 Anthony Capaccio
" - Pentagon tester cites ‘poor or unknown reliability’ of systems
- - Aircraft takeoff and landing systems break down frequently
Aircraft takeoff and landing systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford remain unreliable and break down too often more than three years after the $13.2 billion carrier was delivered, according to the Pentagon’s top tester. The latest assessment of the costliest warship ever built “remains consistent” with previous years, director of testing Robert Behler said in his new summary of the program obtained by Bloomberg News before its release in an annual report. “Poor or unknown reliability of new technology systems critical for flight operations,” including its $3.5 billion electromagnetic launch system and advanced arresting gear, could “adversely affect” the carrier’s ability to generate sorties, he said....
...Failure Rate
Behler’s assessment covered 3,975 launches and landing operations on the Ford during 11 at-sea, post-delivery trials from November 2019 through September 2020. The electromagnetic-powered catapult system is supposed to operate 4,166 “cycles,” or launches, between operational mission failures. Instead, it went 181 cycles between failures, or “well below the requirement,” Behler wrote. He didn’t detail the scope or severity of the problems.
Two separate failures last year caused the catapults to go down for three days, Behler wrote. The Navy acknowledged one in June. The system’s reliability concerns “are exacerbated” by a design that precludes some maintenance during flight operations, according to Behler.
The latest performance of the Ford’s new “Advanced Arresting Gear” to stop planes on landing, a system projected to cost almost $1 billion, also raised “reliability concerns,” Behler wrote. It’s supposed to operate landings, or recoveries, between operational mission failures. Instead, it averaged only 48 recoveries, also “well below the requirement,” Behler wrote.
A capacitor also failed during maintenance trouble-shooting in port that took the crew seven days to fix. “The reliability concerns are magnified” by the current design that limits “corrective maintenance on below-deck equipment during flight operations, “ Behler wrote.
Asked to comment on the reliability data, Alan Baribeau, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, referred questions to Captain Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for the Navy’s acquisition chief. Hernandez said in a emailed statement that “I’m not going to comment on a draft unpublished report.” ...
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-off-deck
15 Jan 2021, 07:51
2020cvn78.pdf15 Jan 2021, 15:20
13 Mar 2021, 02:49
As USS Gerald R. Ford Nears Shock Trials, Carrier Remains Busy With Testing, Fleet Support
12 Mar 2021 Megan Eckstein
"ABOARD AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS GERALD R. FORD, IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN – When new commanding officer Capt. Paul Lanzilotta wakes up each morning on USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), his long and diverse to-do list highlights the balance the aircraft carrier is trying to strike as it wraps up its new-ship testing and prepares for shock trials this summer, while also carrying out other duties as the only available aircraft carrier on the East Coast....
Proving Out Ford-Class Efficiencies...
...Though the ship hasn’t worked with a full carrier air wing yet to do cyclic flight operations and see how fast the new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) can clear all the planes off the flight deck, he said EMALS is proving its worth already on the maintenance side.
“Any complex system requires constant attention and maintenance. And the steam catapult system obviously still serving today overseas, deployed, doing the work of the republic every single day (on the Nimitz-class carriers), that requires a lot of manpower and a lot of man hours and woman hours on the flight deck. When we stop flying here at the end of the day – so last night we finished – I don’t know, XO: what was it, midnight-30? Almost one in the morning? On a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, you would then have two to three hours of preventative maintenance to do on all that kit before you can close up shop for the night and get a bite to eat and get some rest for the next day of flight operations. On this ship, our sailors literally put (EMALS) in standby mode, and get the same bite to eat and go to bed. Those are hard-to-measure benefits, but in my mind they’re huge,” Lanzilotta said....
...“Right now the things that we’re doing are much more tactical (than focusing on sortie-generation rates from a programmatic perspective): we’re qualifying aviators that are flying on and off the ship, and by doing that we’re finding what our throughput is, how can we find ways to do things more efficiently. I’m sure you noticed on the flight deck: that is a giant flight deck, so there are ways that, once we embark the entire air wing – back in November during our Independent Steaming Event Number 13 we embarked a portion of Air Wing 8 – when we embark a larger portion of that air wing and then the whole air wing, we are going to find, I think, great efficiencies in the flight deck size and layout. So we’re still building on that,” Lanzilotta said. “What I do see is a lot of opportunity for innovation.”...
...He praised the EMALS and the new Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) systems for being able to tailor the force used to launch or recover a plane to the size of the plane, meaning it puts less stress on the airframe and also on the ship.
“If you’re walking around a Nimitz-class carrier and we are slinging airplanes downrange, then every time that catapult goes to the end, you feel the whole boat shake and vibrate. It doesn’t happen on this boat. Because of the electromagnetic catapult, as it goes down, [EMALS] has a deceleration at the end, and you are able to launch those without that huge vibration coming across. It cuts down on the noise, all those types of things,” Peterson said, noting this is better for the aircraft, the pilots inside and the ship.
Similarly, AAG can unwind more or less of the arresting wire when a landing aircraft catches it with its tailhook based on the weight of the plane, creating a gentler stop for the planes.
On the Nimitz class, “it’s just an immediate pull as soon as you hit the wire. This is a little bit slower, again, to kind of go out, so that helps you out with the wear and tear. So not only is it better for our equipment, but it’s better for the airplanes that we’re trying to make last for 30, 40 years, where we’re not just ripping those hooks and everything else out there. Huge improvement for the capability of the team.”
Peterson praised the EMALS and AAG operators and maintainers for getting better and better with the new systems each time the ship goes out to sea, adding that they’ve started to recognize small maintenance issues and correct them before they turn into bigger failures, creating greater system readiness as they refine their preventative maintenance practices over time...."
Source: https://news.usni.org/2021/03/12/as-uss ... et-support
31 Mar 2021, 03:08
BAE Systems Wins $42.5M Navy Contract for Landing Systems Integration Support
30 Mar 2021 SeaPower Staff
"MCLEAN, Virginia – BAE Systems was awarded a four-year $42.5 million task order from the U.S. Navy to provide shore-based landing systems integration (LSI) support services for instrument carrier and instrument landing systems (ICLS/ILS), the company said in a March 30 release. The new ILS provides U.S. Navy pilots with increased guidance capabilities by using radio beam signals that aircraft computers translate, enabling pilots to correct their flight path and operate aircraft without instruction from an air traffic controller.
“For several decades, we have been responsible for integrating the Navy’s landing systems, which are critical to the safety of warfighters in the air and on the ground,” said Lisa Hand, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems Integrated Defense Solutions business. “As a lead systems integrator, we have efficient, established, and proven methods and experience installing and sustaining these complex landing systems, which are critical for the safe landing of aircraft.”
In partnership with Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Webster Outlying Field, BAE Systems serves as part of the lead systems integrator team on the LSI contract. The company provides a variety of support including systems integration, installation, and overall system sustainment. The company’s technicians and experts deploy around the world to support warfighters and will provide support at military installations including Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington for ICLS support and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California for ILS support."
Source: https://seapowermagazine.org/bae-system ... n-support/
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