USS John F Kennedy Begins Sea Trials as Trump Orders Steam Catapults for Next Aircraft Carrier

The USS John F Kennedy, the US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, left Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia on 12 August to begin sea trials ahead of its planned handover in March 2027.

President Donald Trump, on the following day, signed a memorandum directing the Pentagon to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) from a different Ford-class carrier, the future USS Doris Miller, and fit steam catapults instead. The memorandum is titled Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base.

The document gives the Secretary of War, the administration’s title for the defence secretary, 60 days to submit a plan covering timelines and resourcing.

The order also directs replacement of the carrier’s electromagnetic Advanced Weapons Elevators with the hydraulic systems used on older Nimitz-class ships.

USS Gerald R Ford, the lead ship of the class already in service, and the future USS Enterprise, the third hull under construction, will keep the electromagnetic system, alongside John F Kennedy.

Doris Miller is the fourth Gerald R Ford-class carrier and is under construction at Newport News, with its keel due by the end of 2026 and delivery expected in 2034.

Aircraft Carrier John F Kennedy first went to sea for builder’s trials on 28 January and returned to Newport News in early February, after HII confirmed a successful test of the ship’s systems. The handover of the vessel to the Navy has slipped from July 2025 to March 2027, a delay attributed to Advanced Arresting Gear certification and continued Advanced Weapons Elevator testing.

EMALS made its debut aboard the Gerald R Ford in 2017, the first US carrier without steam catapults since USS George HW Bush (CVN-77) in 2009.

General Atomics, which holds the roughly $1.2 billion contract to build the system, said the decision not to proceed “warrants careful reconsideration”.

The firm added that production on the system was nearly half complete and that changing course now would raise costs and add scheduling and integration risk.

A senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who previously commanded Carrier Strike Group Five, said the reversal was “illogical, inefficient and a waste of money.” He also said that electromagnetic catapults weigh less, use less energy and water, and need less maintenance and crew than steam systems.

The Pentagon has not purchased a steam catapult system in more than two decades.

The memorandum itself states that meeting the new requirement means reactivating parts of a shipbuilding industrial base that no longer exists in its earlier form.

Reference: Reuters