US Navy Getting Ready to Test Electro Magnetic Catapult at Sea on USS Ford

The Navy is preparing to launch the first ship-board tests of a new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System designed to replace steam catapults and propel fighter jets and other aircraft off the deck of an aircraft carrier and into the sky over the ocean, service officials said. The EMALS system, which uses an electromagnetic field to propel aircraft instead of the currently used steam catapult, is slated for the new Ford-class aircraft carriers.

The first EMALS system has been under construction for several years aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the first in class of the new carriers expected to deliver to the Navy in 2016, Navy officials said. This summer, the Navy will start incremental testing on board the USS Ford wherein “dead loads” placed on weighted sleds are catapulted by the EMALS system into the river, said Capt. Jim Donnelly, program manager for aircraft launch and recovery equipment. “As things get connected they will increase the number of tests. The first aircraft launch will be after the ship gets to sea,” Donnelly said.

Ship integration and testing for the EMALS technology will mark a substantial milestone in a program which, until now, has largely been conducting land-based flight tests at a Navy facility in Lakehurst, N.J. “We’ve conducted 452 aircraft launches and just finished up our second phase of aircraft compatibility testing,” Donnelly explained. The ground-based EMALS catapult tests have launched EA-18G Growlers, F/A-18 Super Hornets, C-2 Greyhound planes and E2D Advanced Hawkeyes, among others. In fact, EMALS even launched an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at Lakehurst, Donnelly added.

The USS Ford has been under construction in recent years at Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls. Equipment for the EMALS system has been in development on board the ship for several years, Navy officials said. General Atomics was awarded a $573 million deal from the Navy in 2009 for EMALS development. “We’ve been making component deliveries to the ship in Newport News since 2011. It started early because for EMALS, some of the equipment such as the motor-generators are lower in the ship so they had to be part of the super-lift early on,” Donnelly added. “At this point we’re delivering components to be installed in the catapult trough which is up on the flight deck.”

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