Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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Good sea states. Weather is good.
Where are the aircraft?
I know they can keep them in the hanger...but in such conditions i would not expect to see it. If they are deployed...then some aircraft should be on deck...at least alert birds.
My thoughts exactly when I saw that photo. Perhaps they are below deck in the hangar. Who knows?
Jura The idiot
General
On CVN-73 Overhaul:
Posted on InsideDefense.com: May 23, 2014
The Senate Armed Services Committee has authorized the Navy secretary to reprogram up to $650 million from other areas of the Navy's budget to pay for the refueling and complex overhaul of the aircraft carrier George Washington, despite the service's wishes to do otherwise.
The committee's mark-up of the fiscal year 2015 defense authorization bill allows the Navy secretary to use unobligated funds from underperforming programs to transfer up to $650 million for advance planning of the George Washington's (CVN-73) overhaul, a move that authorizers say will ensure the Navy is able to maintain an 11-carrier fleet.
The Navy initially planned to include $796 million for the FY-15 portion of the CVN-73 RCOH on an unfunded priority list that was sent to Congress in March. However, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert ultimately decided not to include it in the final version of the list, arguing that the money would cover only FY-15 refueling costs.
Senate authorizers are in step with their House counterparts on the carrier overhaul. Despite the Navy's wishes, House authorizers in their mark released earlier this month included a total of $796.2 million for the RCOH, money that is meant to cover FY-15 costs for the ship's restoration efforts. The House added $483.6 million to the RCOH funding line and spread the rest of the cost throughout the Navy's portion of the bill.
Still, the $650 million in the Senate bill does not fully cover the Navy's original estimate of the cost of the FY-15 portion of the carrier's overhaul.
Senate authorizers included a provision that precludes the Navy from spending any funds on the inactivation of the carrier, as well as another that requires a report on the effects of moving to a permanent force structure with fewer than 11 operational aircraft carriers.
Authorizers also included $1 billion for the Navy to procure 29 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters; at least some of these aircraft were planned as part of the service's carrier airwing fleet. The Navy in its FY-15 budget proposal cut these aircraft out of its planned FY-16 buy, citing a proportional cut in surface ships. This move would have breached the joint Army-Navy multiyear contract with Sikorsky Aircraft, potentially driving up costs for the Seahawks as well as about 80 UH-60M Black Hawk Army helicopters, Inside the Navy reported in March.
In the Senate bill, lawmakers authorized the Navy to reprogram $650 million from other efforts for the acquisition of a 12th ship of the LPD-17 San Antonio class of amphibious ships, arguing that this move would enable the Marine Corps to better support the Asia-Pacific defense strategy.
This move is also in line with the House Armed Services Committee's decision to include in its mark a recommendation to add $800 million in incremental funding for the construction of the ship.
In contrast to their House counterparts, Senate authorizers allowed the Navy to move forward with its plan to modernize 11 cruisers. House lawmakers earlier this month rejected the Navy's proposal to save money by placing half of its 22 Ticonderoga-class guided missile destroyers, along with three amphibious ships, in reduced status while they are modernized. The Senate committee's bill authorizes the Navy to use resources in the Ship Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment Fund to pay for the phased modernization plan.
In other ship issues, Senate authorizers included $1.4 billion for three Littoral Combat Ships, which is in keeping with the administration's request.
Moving on to the Marine Corps portion of the bill, Senate authorizers added $57.5 million for Marine Corps crisis response units. The Marines submitted a request this spring to Congress of $47 million in its unfunded priority list for special-purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force crisis response units supporting both U.S. Central Command and U.S. Southern Command.
Gen. John Paxton, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told ITN March 26 that these units are purely "aspirational" given funding and manpower constraints.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have previously shown support for the special crisis-response units, spurred by the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012 and the absence of a Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Mediterranean due to fiscal constraints. Last summer, House appropriators and authorizers each approved amendments to increase funding for the unit in U.S. Africa Command.
"Hopefully, the verbal and vocal support will translate into money," Paxton said, referring to the funding needed for the two additional units moving forward.
As for the Navy's unfunded priority list, the service requested $1.1 for its P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. Senate authorizers set aside $2.1 billion for eight aircraft in the committee's most recent mark of the bill.
Posted on InsideDefense.com: May 23, 2014
The Senate Armed Services Committee has authorized the Navy secretary to reprogram up to $650 million from other areas of the Navy's budget to pay for the refueling and complex overhaul of the aircraft carrier George Washington, despite the service's wishes to do otherwise.
The committee's mark-up of the fiscal year 2015 defense authorization bill allows the Navy secretary to use unobligated funds from underperforming programs to transfer up to $650 million for advance planning of the George Washington's (CVN-73) overhaul, a move that authorizers say will ensure the Navy is able to maintain an 11-carrier fleet.
The Navy initially planned to include $796 million for the FY-15 portion of the CVN-73 RCOH on an unfunded priority list that was sent to Congress in March. However, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert ultimately decided not to include it in the final version of the list, arguing that the money would cover only FY-15 refueling costs.
Senate authorizers are in step with their House counterparts on the carrier overhaul. Despite the Navy's wishes, House authorizers in their mark released earlier this month included a total of $796.2 million for the RCOH, money that is meant to cover FY-15 costs for the ship's restoration efforts. The House added $483.6 million to the RCOH funding line and spread the rest of the cost throughout the Navy's portion of the bill.
Still, the $650 million in the Senate bill does not fully cover the Navy's original estimate of the cost of the FY-15 portion of the carrier's overhaul.
Senate authorizers included a provision that precludes the Navy from spending any funds on the inactivation of the carrier, as well as another that requires a report on the effects of moving to a permanent force structure with fewer than 11 operational aircraft carriers.
Authorizers also included $1 billion for the Navy to procure 29 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters; at least some of these aircraft were planned as part of the service's carrier airwing fleet. The Navy in its FY-15 budget proposal cut these aircraft out of its planned FY-16 buy, citing a proportional cut in surface ships. This move would have breached the joint Army-Navy multiyear contract with Sikorsky Aircraft, potentially driving up costs for the Seahawks as well as about 80 UH-60M Black Hawk Army helicopters, Inside the Navy reported in March.
In the Senate bill, lawmakers authorized the Navy to reprogram $650 million from other efforts for the acquisition of a 12th ship of the LPD-17 San Antonio class of amphibious ships, arguing that this move would enable the Marine Corps to better support the Asia-Pacific defense strategy.
This move is also in line with the House Armed Services Committee's decision to include in its mark a recommendation to add $800 million in incremental funding for the construction of the ship.
In contrast to their House counterparts, Senate authorizers allowed the Navy to move forward with its plan to modernize 11 cruisers. House lawmakers earlier this month rejected the Navy's proposal to save money by placing half of its 22 Ticonderoga-class guided missile destroyers, along with three amphibious ships, in reduced status while they are modernized. The Senate committee's bill authorizes the Navy to use resources in the Ship Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment Fund to pay for the phased modernization plan.
In other ship issues, Senate authorizers included $1.4 billion for three Littoral Combat Ships, which is in keeping with the administration's request.
Moving on to the Marine Corps portion of the bill, Senate authorizers added $57.5 million for Marine Corps crisis response units. The Marines submitted a request this spring to Congress of $47 million in its unfunded priority list for special-purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force crisis response units supporting both U.S. Central Command and U.S. Southern Command.
Gen. John Paxton, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told ITN March 26 that these units are purely "aspirational" given funding and manpower constraints.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have previously shown support for the special crisis-response units, spurred by the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012 and the absence of a Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Mediterranean due to fiscal constraints. Last summer, House appropriators and authorizers each approved amendments to increase funding for the unit in U.S. Africa Command.
"Hopefully, the verbal and vocal support will translate into money," Paxton said, referring to the funding needed for the two additional units moving forward.
As for the Navy's unfunded priority list, the service requested $1.1 for its P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. Senate authorizers set aside $2.1 billion for eight aircraft in the committee's most recent mark of the bill.
Jura The idiot
General
On Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System:
Posted on InsideDefense.com: May 23, 2014
The Navy is preparing to begin ship-based testing of its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, designed to replace the service's aging steam-driven catapults, the program manager told Inside the Navy last week.
The Navy has just completed its second and final phase of land-based testing at its flight test facility in Lakehurst, NJ, Capt. Jim Donnelly, aircraft launch and recovery equipment program manager, said in an interview last week. The Navy has conducted 452 aircraft launches since the start of the program in December 2010, including tests of the F/A-18 Super Hornet; the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft; the C-2A Greyhound; the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye; the T-45C training aircraft; and the F-35C.
The next time aircraft will be launched from EMALS will be off the launch system on the new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), Donnelly said. The ship is scheduled to deliver in March 2016, and the first launch from EMALS will take place later in the spring of that year, he added.
In the meantime, the Navy will conduct dead-load launches from the system, Donnelly said, which simulate different aircraft types by weight. These tests will aid the team in system reliability growth, he said.
"At this point, we are really doing software revisions," Donnelly told ITN. "I'm talking about a normal test program where you find things as you test and you go in and you redesign and you make fixes."
In his annual report released earlier this year, J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, outlined testing and reliability issues associated with some of the key systems on the Ford carrier, including EMALS.
At the Lakehurst test site, over 1,967 launches have been conducted and 201 chargeable failures have occurred, Gilmore wrote. "Based on expected reliability growth, the failure rate is presently five times higher than should be expected," the report reads.
However, Donnelly dismissed Gilmore's concerns because he said his team was "injecting failures into the system intentionally" during the testing phase.
"I'm not as concerned because we were testing in the most aggressive test phase and we were trying to break the system essentially," Donnelly said. "We were injecting failures into the system intentionally, we were overloading the system intentionally to find things and also to ensure that we were meeting our critical launch reliability."
Donnelly added that he will not change his plan for the system in response to the DOT&E report.
"I am pressing on with my plan," he said. "I am pressing on with correcting components if I need to, and like I said at this point I'm talking more about software revisions."
EMALS works by using electrical power generating by the ship's naval reactors, Donnelly explained. This electricity is converted into an electromagnetic field that propels a 20-foot aluminum plate down the catapult track. The aircraft to be launched sits atop the aluminum plate, and when the plate comes to a stop at the end of the track, the aircraft continues to fly.
"They basically make an electromagnetic field, which kind of is a wave, kind of like Waikiki, and the aluminum plate is the surfboard that just rides the electromagnetic wave down the catapult," Donnelly said.
EMALS is more capable and more accurate than the steam catapult, Donnelly said, and has the capacity to launch heavier as well as lighter aircraft.
"From an operational perspective, the airwing has grown in size and the energy that is required to launch [aircraft]," he said. EMALS "is able to launch heavier aircraft or aircraft that require more energy. In the lower ends of the operational envelope, it also expands, so it's more aircraft-friendly in the lower weight."
Despite repeated delays in the program dating back several years, Donnelly is confident that EMALS will be ready for installation into CVN-78 by the ship's delivery date.
"The date that [CVN-78] was going to be introduced into the fleet never changed," Donnelly said. "We had less of a schedule margin, [but we are] still meeting the ship delivery date."
Posted on InsideDefense.com: May 23, 2014
The Navy is preparing to begin ship-based testing of its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, designed to replace the service's aging steam-driven catapults, the program manager told Inside the Navy last week.
The Navy has just completed its second and final phase of land-based testing at its flight test facility in Lakehurst, NJ, Capt. Jim Donnelly, aircraft launch and recovery equipment program manager, said in an interview last week. The Navy has conducted 452 aircraft launches since the start of the program in December 2010, including tests of the F/A-18 Super Hornet; the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft; the C-2A Greyhound; the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye; the T-45C training aircraft; and the F-35C.
The next time aircraft will be launched from EMALS will be off the launch system on the new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), Donnelly said. The ship is scheduled to deliver in March 2016, and the first launch from EMALS will take place later in the spring of that year, he added.
In the meantime, the Navy will conduct dead-load launches from the system, Donnelly said, which simulate different aircraft types by weight. These tests will aid the team in system reliability growth, he said.
"At this point, we are really doing software revisions," Donnelly told ITN. "I'm talking about a normal test program where you find things as you test and you go in and you redesign and you make fixes."
In his annual report released earlier this year, J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, outlined testing and reliability issues associated with some of the key systems on the Ford carrier, including EMALS.
At the Lakehurst test site, over 1,967 launches have been conducted and 201 chargeable failures have occurred, Gilmore wrote. "Based on expected reliability growth, the failure rate is presently five times higher than should be expected," the report reads.
However, Donnelly dismissed Gilmore's concerns because he said his team was "injecting failures into the system intentionally" during the testing phase.
"I'm not as concerned because we were testing in the most aggressive test phase and we were trying to break the system essentially," Donnelly said. "We were injecting failures into the system intentionally, we were overloading the system intentionally to find things and also to ensure that we were meeting our critical launch reliability."
Donnelly added that he will not change his plan for the system in response to the DOT&E report.
"I am pressing on with my plan," he said. "I am pressing on with correcting components if I need to, and like I said at this point I'm talking more about software revisions."
EMALS works by using electrical power generating by the ship's naval reactors, Donnelly explained. This electricity is converted into an electromagnetic field that propels a 20-foot aluminum plate down the catapult track. The aircraft to be launched sits atop the aluminum plate, and when the plate comes to a stop at the end of the track, the aircraft continues to fly.
"They basically make an electromagnetic field, which kind of is a wave, kind of like Waikiki, and the aluminum plate is the surfboard that just rides the electromagnetic wave down the catapult," Donnelly said.
EMALS is more capable and more accurate than the steam catapult, Donnelly said, and has the capacity to launch heavier as well as lighter aircraft.
"From an operational perspective, the airwing has grown in size and the energy that is required to launch [aircraft]," he said. EMALS "is able to launch heavier aircraft or aircraft that require more energy. In the lower ends of the operational envelope, it also expands, so it's more aircraft-friendly in the lower weight."
Despite repeated delays in the program dating back several years, Donnelly is confident that EMALS will be ready for installation into CVN-78 by the ship's delivery date.
"The date that [CVN-78] was going to be introduced into the fleet never changed," Donnelly said. "We had less of a schedule margin, [but we are] still meeting the ship delivery date."
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
What EMALS gives the low energy requirement per kilo of launch compared with steam
Because you can focus and control the amount of electrical energy supplied at the point of launch whereas with steam you do not have this control and it's not as efficient it just goes everywhere plus manpower required is less meaning cheaper operating costs basically it's a improvement it's a innovation and that's what keeps people ahead in the game
Because you can focus and control the amount of electrical energy supplied at the point of launch whereas with steam you do not have this control and it's not as efficient it just goes everywhere plus manpower required is less meaning cheaper operating costs basically it's a improvement it's a innovation and that's what keeps people ahead in the game
thunderchief
Senior Member
Only 6 pilots have been qualified for carrier operations with Mig-29K (article below says 10) . Give poor Indians a break
thunderchief
Senior Member
Friends I have in India confirm to me that 10 is the current number. I expect that number will grow rather quickly because they have an entire squadron already stood up of in-service Mig-29Ks.Only 6 pilots have been qualified for carrier operations with Mig-29K (article below says 10) . Give poor Indians a break
If they are truly on an active, in-service "deployment" of the carrier, then you would expect to see some aircraft on deck...that was my only point.
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