Found this Boeing News this morning.........................
'FAULT' IN ELECTRICAL SYSTEM BEHIND LATEST DELAY TO FORD DELIVERY
The failure of a shipboard electrical system is the primary reason behind the latest delay pushing the acceptance trials and delivery of the Navy's first-in-class megacarrier, the Gerald R. Ford, back to November, according to the head of Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Navy is investigating the cause behind a component failure discovered during recent testing of the Ford's (CVN-78) electrical systems, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, the chief of NAVSEA, told reporters following a July 13 Navy League breakfast in Arlington, VA. He said the service wants to ensure it understands the reason behind the failure before continuing to test the 13.8-kV system.
"We had a fault in one of the systems," Moore said. "The system did what it was supposed to do, it shut the component down. But when you work with really high power like that . . . you want to make sure you've got it right.
"In this particular case, we had a component that failed," he added. "We want to understand, why did it fail? And then we've got other components like that on the ship. We've got to make sure that it was isolated to that one before we get back into testing."
Moore, who had served as program executive officer for aircraft carriers from 2011 until he was elevated to NAVSEA commander this past June, said the electrical issue is the "principal cause" of the latest delay to CVN-78's delivery date. On July 12, the Navy announced the estimated delivery date for the Ford had been pushed from September to November.
"During the ongoing testing of developmental systems onboard the CVN-78, first-of-class issues are continuing to be resolved," Navy spokeswoman Capt. Thurraya Kent wrote in a July 12 statement. Kent stressed that if additional issues arise during the remaining shipboard testing the ship may not be delivered in November.
The Ford is about 98 percent complete, the shipbuilder has turned over 97 percent of compartments and the service has achieved 89 percent of overall shipboard testing, Kent said. Inside the Navy reported in May that dead-load testing for the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System was complete for CVN-78.
Further, another of the new technologies aboard the Ford, the Dual Band Radar, has successfully energized at high power. This includes all six -- three multifunction radar arrays and three volume search radar arrays, Kent wrote.
"Targets of opportunity have been tracked across adjacent MFR array faces," she added.
Additionally, testing for the propulsion plant steam and electric systems using reactor power is ongoing, she wrote.
One new technology on the Ford that remains a challenge is the Advanced Arresting Gear, the system that catches aircraft on the carrier's flight deck. In a report released July 8, the Defense Department inspector general found the Navy mismanaged development of the arresting gear. The report says the AAG program is $571.5 million over budget, with developmental testing originally scheduled to be completed in 2009 expected to continue through 2018.
The latest delay to the Ford's delivery date, however, will not hamper further development of the AAG, according to Moore. He said the Navy anticipates achieving an aircraft recovery bulletin for the AAG by November, which will allow the service to begin aircraft operations on CVN-78 in January 2017. An aircraft recovery bulletin provides standard operating procedures and technical guidance for landing planes using the system and is required to conduct AAG flight operations.
"The [delivery] delay hasn't impacted the AAG timeline," Moore said. "They still expect to get her recovery bulletin in November, and I think we'll still land planes on her right after the first of the year, which is probably where we would have been regardless. They're really kind of two independent events."
Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) blasted the latest delay to the Ford's delivery, writing in a July 12 statement that the setback demonstrates how key systems are not performing as expected.
"The advanced arresting gear (AAG) cannot recover airplanes. Advanced weapons elevators cannot lift munitions. The dual-band radar cannot integrate two radar bands. Even if everything goes according to the Navy's plan, CVN-78 will be delivered with multiple systems unproven," he wrote, adding: "This situation is unacceptable and was entirely preventable. The Ford-class program is a case study in why our acquisition system must be reformed -- unrealistic business cases, poor cost estimates, new systems rushed to production, concurrent design and construction, and problems testing systems to demonstrate promised capability.
"After more than $2.3 billion in cost overruns have increased its cost to nearly $13 billion, the taxpayers deserve to know when CVN-78 will actually be delivered, how much developmental risk remains in the program, if cost overruns will continue, and who is being held accountable," McCain continued. -- Justin Doubleday and Lee Hudson
Their first mistake was naming it the Gerald Ford....................... going to be accident prone ship.....................
Hoss
