WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of and return to using older steam catapults that , according to a directive issued Thursday.
The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy鈥檚 most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.
directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.
The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.
Trump’s ire with the new technology goes back to at least 2017 in his first term, when he claimed the new system is 鈥渘ot good鈥� and 鈥渄oesn’t have the power鈥� of the older, steam systems in an interview with Time magazine.
鈥淵ou’re going to goddamned steam,鈥� Trump said at the time. The topic has frequently come up since then at rallies and other events.
While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier.
Trump’s memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched.
However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.
General Atomics, the company that makes EMALS, told The Associated Press in an email that the decision not to proceed with the system on the USS Doris Miller 鈥渨arrants careful reconsideration.鈥�
Trump’s memo that mandates the removal of the system also noted that one of the is the Navy’s constant design changes, 鈥渨hich have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations.鈥�
General Atomics said the work on the Doris Miller’s catapults and arresting gear was already halfway complete and said 鈥渃hanging course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks.”
The move comes as Congress will weigh the necessary budget and funding bills that the Trump administration has said they need to and the Iran war.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated last month that as Republicans prepared a $95 billion package to fund the military, along with other White House priorities.
Hegseth said the supplemental war funding is an 鈥渦rgent, necessary鈥� injection of money, and with Trump’s proposed a generational investment in the military.
The but the Senate still must act when it .
Some of the key advantages to the electromagnetic system are its ability to launch aircraft at faster speeds while being easier to maintain, requiring fewer sailors to operate and using less space aboard the ship.
EMALS aboard the USS Ford cut the number of sailors need to operate the catapults from about a dozen to two.
Reverting to a system that requires more people to operate it comes as the Navy has struggled to translate its recruiting successes in the past year to actually filling jobs on warships. At the start of the year, the Navy had about 20,000 unfilled posts across the fleet.
In February, the Navy touted the system in a press release that said it allowed the USS Ford to launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its predecessor, the Nimitz-class ships.
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