08/15/2026
More problems for Navy, President Trump ordered electromagnetic catapults EMALS be removed from plans for Ford Class carrier PCU Doris Miller and replaced with traditional steam catapults.
This article indicates 36K successful EMAL launches from USS Ford, no existing company manufactures steam versions.
Will ask about at Naval War College conference next week.
Fleet Week New York
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President Trump has ordered the US Navy to make a major change to a future aircraft carrier, and the decision has split the naval world. In a memorandum signed August 13, he directed the Navy to remove the modern electromagnetic catapult from the future USS Doris Miller and replace it with the steam catapults that carriers used for decades.
WHAT CHANGED
Catapults are the devices that fling jets off a carrier's deck fast enough to fly. For about 70 years, American carriers used steam-powered catapults. The newest class, the Gerald R. Ford class, replaced them with EMALS, the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, which uses a magnetic track instead of steam.
Trump's memo orders the Navy to strip EMALS from the future USS Doris Miller, the fourth Ford-class carrier, which is still early in construction, and install steam catapults instead. It also calls for replacing the ship's advanced electromagnetic weapons elevators with hydraulic ones. The three Ford-class carriers already built or further along, the Ford itself, the John F. Kennedy, and the Enterprise, are not affected. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the acting Navy secretary have 60 days to deliver a plan.
THE CASE FOR THE CHANGE
Supporters, including the president, argue that EMALS has been troubled and that steam is the safer bet. Trump has long criticized the electromagnetic system, saying in July he had no patience for "electric catapults that don't work." His directive says the Navy has suffered "a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs" and calls for a return to "proven, reliable, and affordable technologies."
There's history behind the complaint. EMALS did suffer reliability problems in its early years aboard the Ford. Steam catapults, by contrast, are a mature, well-understood technology that generations of sailors know how to operate and repair.
THE CASE AGAINST IT
Critics, including several naval analysts, call the move backward and costly. They point out that EMALS has largely proven itself, the USS Gerald R. Ford has completed more than 36,000 EMALS launches. The system is designed to be gentler on aircraft, easier to maintain over a career, and, crucially, able to launch the lighter unmanned aircraft the Navy plans to fly in the future, something steam catapults struggle to do.
There's also a practical problem. According to experts interviewed by CNN, no company in the United States currently manufactures steam catapults anymore. The Navy hasn't built a new one in over 15 years, and the infrastructure is gone. Restarting that production line, they say, would cost tens of millions of dollars and take years, on top of the billions and the schedule delays the overall change is expected to add to a carrier already not due until the 2030s.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
For now, the decision applies only to the Doris Miller, the one carrier still early enough in construction to change course. The Navy's plan, due within 60 days, will spell out the cost, the timeline, and whether the shift affects anything beyond this single ship.
It's a genuine debate with real arguments on both sides: proven simplicity versus modern capability, near-term reliability versus long-term potential. What's certain is that one of America's future carriers is now at the center of a fight over how the Navy should build the ships that will defend the country for the next half-century.
