The US Navy’s newest aircraft recovery system, Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), successfully completed the system’s most demanding test event to date with 22 aircraft arrestments in just over 26 minutes at the Runway Arrested Landing Site (RALS) in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The system will ll replace the MK 7 hydraulic arresting gear which is in use on the ten Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The AAG is designed for a broader range of aircraft, including UAVs, while reducing manpower and maintenance. Rotary engines which use simple energy-absorbing water turbines (or twisters) coupled to a large induction motor provide finer control of the arresting forces.
The US Navy say that the two-day series of testing evaluated the AAG thermal management system’s ability to remove excess heat generated during fast-paced flight operations as experienced aboard the aircraft carrier to validate the system’s capability to meet USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) operational requirements.
“This never-before accomplished test event was effectively executed with herculean efforts by a collaborative program office-fleet team,” said Capt. Ken Sterbenz, Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (PMA-251) programme manager.
“This achievement represents a significant datapoint for AAG performance as experienced at our single engine land-based site. I’m highly confident with AAG going into CVN 78 Aircraft Compatibility Testing early next year where the full, three-engine recovery system configuration will be utilized.”
The U.S. Navy has made significant progress in maturing the latest carrier-based launch and recovery technologies – the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and AAG system. As of September 2019, the EMALS test program has completed more than 3,800 dead-loads, or weighted sleds, and over 530 aircraft launches at the System Functional Demonstration test site.
Starting to look very promising. Two years from now? Maybe we should be looking to install one of these onboard the QE class much earlier than planned. 2030’s I believe.
QE/PoW with AAG, operating a STOBAR version of Tempest, circa 2035-40?
What iisn’t mentioned is the failure rate; it’s significantly higher than the USN’s requirements for a CATBOAR system. I can’t remember exactly, but the US DOT&E published a report on it that’s available online. I’d be surprised if it was truly ready for some time yet.
For my money, I’d get the RAF/RN used to carrier ops again with the QNLZ & POW as they are. The estimated price tag for refitting them both was ~£6Bn. We won’t have a CATOBAR aircraft in inventory until the 2040s (if Tempest were to be designed for it), so the carriers will be 2/3 through their service life before they can use it. F-35C has had troubles and the USN isn’t as keen on them as all that- they’ll be flying alongside F/A-18s for a long time yet. So there’s no point in switching some of our F-35 order in my opinon.
For my money, get the RAF/RN really expert at carrier ops and equipped for Carrier battle groups again over the next 20-odd years. Around the late 2020s / early 2030s, start the process of designing the QE-class successor with CATOBAR EMALS. That way we’re still meeting that “steady drumbeat” of orders that we need to keep our shipyards healthy, as the design and subsequent build will likely take us into early 2040s. We can then see about selling the QEs early around 2045 with some miles still left on them (to Chile or Brazil, maybe?), and integrate into CATOBAR ops. The USN make CATOBAR look easy, but it’s really not and they’ve had decades to get as good as they are.
Also, bear in mind that UAVs are advancing very quickly, and combat ones may not need such long take offs due to their aerodynamic efficiency and lighter weight. By the late 2030s, we may not need anything bigger than a QE-class for combat ops…!
The AAG and EMALS problems WILL get worked out but there are other issues as well IRT operating the F35C off of the new GRF class which has resulted in this puzzling situation…
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navy%E2%80%99s-big-mismatch-old-aircraft-carriers-new-stealth-fighters-94451
Cheers.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/15/the-navys-new-supercarrier-can-now-land-all-of-its-planes-except-the-f-35-stealth-fighter/
All very strange considering how delayed the F35 has been.
Interestingly on another point I read an article in the Economist last week (I include a link but need to sign up to read sadly) that was claiming that not too far into the future, it will only be safe to operate carriers in any potential peer conflict a thousand plus miles away from land which would take it out of its own strike range ironically. The long range anti ship missiles being developed are becoming so dangerous and its estimated with potential salvos from China as the prime example in excess of 5 to 600 missiles. Don’t know how worrying that is (off of the paper) but certainly makes the UK carriers look even less defensively armed than we already recognise. It was suggesting if I remember correctly that smaller more flexible carriers would be a better bet.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/11/14/aircraft-carriers-are-under-threat-from-modern-missiles
I’ve posted several times on the very same subject. The USN is reviewing its entire future fleet composition because of the emerging threat poised by systems such as hypersonic missiles, ballistic area denial missiles, and AI surveillance and targeting. There is a real debate in the service over the survivability of any large combatant and the wisdom of putting so much emphasis on high value assets such as CVNs and LHAs.
The USMC has already moved away from its requirements for a USN 39 large amphibious vessel minimum for a 2 brigade amphibious assault capability realizing that such a concentration of vessels sitting 3 miles offshore for a traditional beach landing are simply not survivable even today in a high threat environment.
I would not be surprised if the number of GRF class CVNs are cut to less than 11 ordered. Perhaps as low as 6. There is an increasing emphasis on dispersal and the fleet’s LHAs carrying 10-22 F35Bs (and more UCAVs when developed) would be easy to disperse yet possess significant striking power. There is also much greater emphasis on the SSN fleet and smaller surface combatants with maximum weapons loads. The arsenal ship (and plane) concept is also back.
In a way, there is a real silver lining to the current aging USN fleet structure since it allows us to take a hard look at the latest Chinese and Russian developments to counter the USN and to develop new ships, weapons, and tactics specifically to offset and frustrate them. It’s ironic that the Chinese have swallowed the current obsolete USN fleet composition model hook, line, and sinker, copying almost every class with one of their own and sinking enormous amounts of funding into a brand new fleet of ships that are already obsolete and non survivable in the new threat environment.
Meanwhile The USN has already used up its older ships in terms of sunk costs and can modernize the fleet on a new for old replacement basis. It gives the U.S. Navy an outstanding opportunity to completely rewrite the book and put the the PLAN and the Russian Navy in the position of being locked into a force structure that the USN is specifically organized to counter…
Cheers!