Overview
- Speaking aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, Japan, the president said he will order steam catapults and hydraulic elevators on future aircraft carriers.
- The White House offered no implementation details, and requests for comment from the Navy and White House were not returned in initial reports.
- EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear, which faced early testing issues, are now operational on the USS Gerald R. Ford, with the technology also being adopted by France.
- Experts refuted his suggestion that a glass of water could disable magnets, even as he criticized EMALS as costly and hard to repair and joked about needing MIT experts.
- Analysts say reverting designs would mean restarting retired steam-era production lines, redesigning ships under construction, incurring billions in costs, and risking delays as China tests EM catapults on its Fujian carrier.