By Geoff Fein
The next generation aircraft launch system being designed for CVN-78 is moving ahead, and despite some issues with cost and schedule, Navy officials believe the capability will make it on to the Gerald R. Ford.
As a result of a production assessment conducted in the later part of 2007 and early 2008, the Navy identified some additional testing that needed to be accomplished with the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), Capt. Randy Mahr, program manager for aircraft launch and recovery equipment, told Defense Daily in an interview this week.
“We went ahead and re-baselined the program at that point. So over last summer we came up with an adjusted test plan,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Navy and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems continued to build components, sending them up to Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, N.J., and putting those systems into test phases, Mahr said.
The Ford will be built by Northrop Grumman [NOC] Shipbuilding at its Newport News, Va., facility.
In September 2008, the Navy concluded high cycle test Phase I on the motor generator–the longest lead component for CVN-78, he added.
“It was successful and we got all the data we needed,” Mahr said. “We started buying the long-lead material, at that point, for the motor generators for the 12 that will go into Ford.”
At the same time, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and the Navy were updating what they thought the cost would be for the CVN-78 shipset, he added.
Additionally, last fall as Mahr began executing the re-planned test schedule, the program saw some schedule erosion. “We lost some schedule…between August and December.”
“Right now I am about 60 days behind schedule, to system functional demonstration, which will happen starting February 2010,” he said. “Since December, we have held that pretty constant.”
The schedule slip caused people to look at EMALS and question whether the program office was doing the same thing that got them into trouble in the first place, Mahr said. Additionally, questions were being raised about the ability to control schedule, whether the program office really understood what it is going to take to finish, and whether the program office would be able to complete development of the program, he added.
“That put a little bit of a question into Navy leadership’s mind over whether we could complete SDD (System Development and Demonstration) on the schedule we laid out,” Mahr said. “The program, over the last two to three years, has already gone and pushed ourselves into concurrency…our test program is concurrent with our procurement for CVN-78 shipsets. So any further schedule erosion would increase the risk there.”
At the beginning of December ’08, the Navy received the estimated cost for production. “It came in much higher than the Navy thought the cost was going to be,” Mahr noted.
Material costs for one had gone up, a much higher rate than had been expected, he said.
“We did the production assessment review [and] identified some additional labor that General Atomics needed to apply on their end, specifically in systems engineering,” Mahr said.
Mahr added he could not provide the cost at this time.
In January, Sean Stackley, the Navy’s acquisition chief, was briefed about the state of EMALS. According to Mahr, Stackley wanted officials to go back and take a look at the program–the two primary drivers–the increased cost and the schedule slip.
Stackley established several teams to review the program: “an engineering team, a program management team, a cost team, and a requirements team,” Mahr said.
The teams wrapped their work in March, he added. “We are at the point where Secretary Stackley has the information and he’s considering what to do with it.”
On April 1, Allison Stiller, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for ships, testified before the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee that the Navy is seeking input from industry on the cost and schedule impact of switching to a steam catapult.
Mahr said her comments to the subcommittee came out of those team meetings that were organized by Stackley.
While Mahr acknowledges there have been some minor technical glitches, such as replacing blown diodes, the Navy has not identified any technical problems other than the normal “putting things together for the first time.”
Phase I of the high cycle tests was very successful and Mahr is now preparing this week to start Phase II.
Phase II “puts together one full power train with the exception of the launch motor itself…the catapult part…and we’ve been running that and commissioning testing now for several months. I can’t say it’s been flawless, but the things [that have occurred]…we blew a diode the other day,” he said. “All the folks that have looked at it from a technical perspective…nobody has found anything that isn’t going to work.”
Still, the loss of schedule and the increased cost to build EMALS worried some people, Mahr said.
Add to that a vibration issue with the fourth motor generator, and it’s easy to understand the concern, he added.
“This is a huge motor generator designed to last 50 years. On the fourth one we built, which this week is going to be shipped up to Lakehurst, we had some unusual vibration in it. We weren’t quite sure why,” Mahr said. “It turned out to be a bearing. We redesigned the bearing and the vibration went away, but it took us a while to figure out what the driving component was. So in the meantime everybody is hearing we have vibration in the longest of the long-lead components and you don’t know what’s causing it yet.”
But even after resolving the vibration issue, EMALS program officials again were queried over concerns about the huge motor generators, Mahr said.
Those concerns led to questioning whether the program office was ready to move forward, he added. “The answer is, yes, we are ready.”
“We’ve built three motor generators. They are in place. One is at Tupelo, two are at Lakehurst. Number four will ship this week and the last one will ship next month (both to Lakehurst),” Mahr said.
“Had we been less concurrent with testing and manufacturing, I think people would have been a lot less worried,” he noted. “People are nervous. Anything that is causing the aircraft carrier schedule…you move things on a carrier a little bit and it’s very expensive…so anything that said our testing schedule was going to go further to the right, people were worried about. I absolutely understand.”
This summer, the catapult at Lakehurst will be commissioned, Mahr said. “I have a large number of components up there…about a third of the length of catapult installed, and we are delivering additional components every week. So this summer I will start commissioning the power trains, which means turning the power on, moving power through the system and making sure everything is fully functional.”
In the fall, the Navy will begin moving the armature–the component that pulls the aircraft down the catapult. A few months later, the Navy will begin shooting dead loads on the catapult, Mahr said.
In calendar year ’10, full length, full power, full weight dead load testing will take place, all leading up to the first aircraft tests toward the end of 2010, he added.