New Carrier USS Ford Launches First Plane With Electromagnetic Catapult

Published Aug 1, 2017 By Maciej Karol

OpsLens / YouTube

U.S. Navy’s newest carrier commenced with another part of its sea trials. The crew was testing launching and recovering an F/A-18 Super Hornet to assess the functionality of all the systems. The big one in question was the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or “EMALS”.

The future USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) underway on its own power for the first time. The first-of-class ship — the first new U.S. aircraft carrier design in 40 years — will spend several days conducting builder’s sea trials, a comprehensive test of many of the ship’s key systems and technologies. | Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni / Public Domain

USS Gerald R. Ford was launched and christened in 2013 and has been commissioned in July of 2017. It is now being rigorously tested and if all goes well, she’ll be deployed sometime in 2020.

The utilization of the EMALS will help launch 25% more aircraft while using 25% less crew.

As part of her sea trials, the EMALS system has to be evaluated as part of thousands of other new gadgets onboard. What makes this so significant, however, is that it is the first carrier to implement this new technology.

Every other carrier before USS Gerald R. Ford had a standard steam catapult system that launched aircraft into the air. As the name suggests, EMALS uses a linear induction motor by creating an electromagnetic field. This not only launches aircraft in a much smoother manner but also eliminates the massive amount of space traditional steam catapults need.