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The US Navy is asking for outside help because it still hasn't figured out how to fix its $13 billio
The US Navy is asking for outside help because it still hasn't figured out how to fix its $13 billion supercarriershttps://www.businessinsider.com/navy-asks-for-outside-help-to-fix-ford-class-supercarriers-2019-7
The Navy is struggling to fix its new Ford-class supercarriers, so the service has called in outside experts to help find a solution amid delivery delays and rising costs.
The advanced weapons elevators, critical systems that the secretary of the Navy bet his job on, are one of the biggest problems. Only two of the 11 electromagnetic lifts on the USS Gerald R. Ford are operational.
The advanced weapons elevators on the Ford-class carriers are designed to move 20,000 pounds of munitions up to the flight deck at a rate of 150 feet per minute, a significant improvement over elevators on the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which are able to lift only 10,500 pounds at 100 feet per minute. These lifts are crucial to increasing the aircraft sortie rate, which in turn would increase the lethality of the new carriers over their predecessors.
But that requires they work, and right now, they don't.
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