Join the Navy and see the ... drydock?

[Hawkmoon]

Our new superduper carrier can't deploy because the elevators that bring the munitions to the flight deck don't elevate.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-30/flawed-elevators-on-13-billion-carrier-miss-another-deadline

The ship is two years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget but it's not a problem because the builder is going to correct the problems "efficiently."

[French G.]

It's the lead ship of a new class. Poop happens. Really expensive poop.

[BobR]

That is nothing compared to the "growing pains" the EMALS has had. My brother in law was an engineer on that project for General Atomic until the Obama years killed most of their contracts and they started closing buildings and laying off people. I am not sure they have it sorted out yet or not.

bob

[Hawkmoon]

That is nothing compared to the "growing pains" the EMALS has had. My brother in law was an engineer on that project for General Atomic until the Obama years killed most of their contracts and they started closing buildings and laying off people. I am not sure they have it sorted out yet or not.

"EMALS" ??

[BobR]

"EMALS" ??

Sorry, Electromagnetic Aircraft launch System.

http://www.ga.com/alre


bob

[French G.]

EMALs should save massive lifecycle maintenance costs.

[WLJ]

It's the lead ship of a new class. Poop happens. Really expensive poop.

A fully worked up carrier is probably one of the, if not the, most complex machines on earth. It took us decades to get the whole carrier thing worked out in the first place. Start throwing in a bunch of new technologies and this is expected.

[Hawkmoon]

EMALs should save massive lifecycle maintenance costs.

It's already paying off. Maintenance costs on systems that don't work are minimal.

[K Frame]

I remember when similar concerns came up in the 1984 presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Mondale as a senator had voted to scrap funding for the Nimitz class aircraft carriers after extensive teething problems, but later showed up in a campaign ad on the deck of the Nimitz or Stennis...

Reagan anchored him with a comment to the effect of had Mondale had his way he would have had very wet feet for his ad because of his vote in the Senate in the 1970s.

Truth of the matter is... the US has always tried to push technical innovation to the hard edge on its capital ships, sometimes a bit too hard, but we are really the only nation in the world that has the luxury of being able to do that, and in a lot of cases the initial teething problems have been tough to get through but the end rewards have been extreme.

[lupinus]

After the fact we always tend to fondly remember the later models of weapons systems once all the bugs get worked out. Later models that never would've been around had they been scrapped for teething problems.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[230RN]

EMALS

WTI?














(Who'da Thunk It?)

[French G.]

It's already paying off. Maintenance costs on systems that don't work are minimal.

Then go ski jump a half loaded plane off a second rate carrier. Steam cats made our modern fleet air arm what it is, but the rework cycle, day to day maintenance, and survivability are all better with EMALS which has already worked. Four steam cats at different parts of the ship. You make the steam below the waterline, you use it seventy feet above. And oh yeah, dump it in a cylinder a hundred feet long that has a hole down the entire length of it. Every time we came out of a shipyard the shacks stayed over the cat tracks pretty much until the week before we went to sea. They are never not being worked on. And I have yet to live through a shipyard period that happened on time, budget, or accomplished half of what was planned. It's only news when someone has an axe to grind.

Best one yet, my ship was extensively modified to support V-22. It made one deployment with them and then decommissioned. I wish there was a better way to do shipyards but they are all moneypits.

Off the wall, I lived in front of Huntington Ingalls for ten years. I walked to work for a year while my ship was in drydock. I have lived on the ship in two other shipyards. I would rather sail in circles around Antarctica for a year without stopping than ever set foot in another yard.

[BobR]

Off the wall, I lived in front of Huntington Ingalls for ten years. I walked to work for a year while my ship was in drydock. I have lived on the ship in two other shipyards. I would rather sail in circles around Antarctica for a year without stopping than ever set foot in another yard.

I lived in and around Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth VA for quite a while myself. Of all the things I wish I could do again in 6+ decades of living that particular item doesn't even make the list. All I was grateful for during shipyard periods was for all of the 20lb cans of coffee I saved while deployed. It made greasing the skids with the sandcrabs much easier than if I went with my hat in my hand.

bob