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US Navy pulls parts off an under-construction aircraft carrier to get USS Gerald R. Ford ready to deploy

Roadvirus said:
A childhood injury prevented it.
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Mine wasn't an injury...the Vietnam War was winding up, the Draft was gone, and I was already working part time during high school doing circuit board assembly,
which was turning out to be quite lucrative, and I wound up getting promoted to QC & Testing and I thought making seven bucks an hour
beat hell out of peeling potatoes and basic...I was a blue collar tech and making a living, and between that and a dream of becoming a radio announcer,
I figured I was on the right path.

There was no war going on and I just didn't enlist, that's all.
 
Rexedgar said:
What would defense lobbyists do?

  • Lockheed Martin Corp.
  • Raytheon Technologies Corp.
  • General Dynamics Corp.
  • Boeing Co.
  • Northrop Grumman Corp.
  • Analytic Services Inc.
  • Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.
  • Humana Inc.
Just absorb these into the government?
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They would have to focus on their civilian products and foreign sales. This would of course result in their military divisions being massively downsized, but what do you know? Suddenly thousands of jobs in their industry would have just opened up at government facilities.

Although, personally I’d also be fine with those companies continuing to provide goods and services to the US so long as they are priced at cost, only factoring in cost of materials and labor, with zero profit margin. They wouldn’t be getting rich (or getting shareholders rich) off the taxpayers, but nor would they be in the red.
 
Questerr said:
They would have to focus on their civilian products and foreign sales. This would of course result in their military divisions being massively downsized, but what do you know? Suddenly thousands of jobs in their industry would have just opened up at government facilities.

Although, personally I’d also be fine with those companies continuing to provide goods and services to the US so long as they are priced at cost, only factoring in cost of materials and labor, with zero profit margin. They wouldn’t be getting rich (or getting shareholders rich) off the taxpayers, but nor would they be in the red.
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Yeah, that’s realistic……
 
Rexedgar said:
Yeah, that’s realistic……
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Instead we should continue paying contractors billions in profits for them to give us lemons that don’t work as advertised and then have to pay them billions more to fix the problems they presented us with. That’s definitely a better option.
 
Questerr said:
Instead we should continue paying contractors billions in profits for them to give us lemons that don’t work as advertised and then have to pay them billions more to fix the problems they presented us with. That’s definitely a better option.
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Why do you hate capitalism?
 
armycowboy said:
I served in the Army from 1993 to 2013 and we were cannibalizing parts from vehicles and other equipment the whole time. This is nothing new.
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No one said it is a new phenomena. Rather, one aircraft carrier is being cannibalized due to the ongoing supply chain problems plaguing the US which IS a new phenomena.
 
Questerr said:
And two of them exploded.
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Neither space shuttle exploded. Challenger was ripped apart by aerodynamic stresses after the external tank exploded.

Columbia was torn apart by aerodynamic stresses during reentry after ice had gouged a chunk out of its heat shield during liftoff.

Neither failure involved equipment transferred from from other space shuttle stacks.
 
Whatever the military’s problems are, they certainly cannot be blamed on a lack of spending……the money is going somewhere!
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Should not the navy, an old organization already have mature supply support systems?

Requiring parts for ships is not exactly a new requirement
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cannibalizing parts is nothing new, however the sudden urgency likely has to do with a sudden demand to use it as a show of force, likely near russia or china, as the ship was never fully ready and it was going to take time no matter what to get the first of a new class fully working with all the bugs worked out.

As much as they praise the ford class, you would think they wanted more of them, but again my guess is they suddenly want it operational for a show of force moment, as logistics aside, the goal was to build more of them, and you do not take from one non functional carrier to fix another never functional carrier of a brand new class unless you want it out there quickly.
 
RetiredUSN said:
The navy has been cannibalizing for centuries.

But it gets way out of hand when when 60% of fighter jets are removed from flight status due to parts.
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A large part of that had to do with scrapping other programs to push for the f-35 as well as the military not wanting to produce new airframes and supply issues with the f-35.

The f-35 besides still having glitches and problems has mostly been a problem of the manufacturor, being unable to even keep parts need available and this predates the pandemic.

Besides that the military is pushing forward with the f-35 despite the parts issue still being a problem and cutting budgets for older aircraft, this leaves a situation where something the f-18 needs to stay in service but does not have the budget for parts, with the f-35 being mostly out of service due to the maker being an incompetent entity unable to often supply the most basic parts needed to keep them fully functional.

Of course the budget could be given and large orders made for parts by various makers, but then that goes against the f-35 is taking everything over mentality, and the top brass would have to admit the f-35 is not moving in at the speed they wanted, and legacy aircraft were going to remain in large numbers for atleast a decade more.
 
Rogue Valley said:
US Navy pulls parts off an under-construction aircraft carrier to get USS Gerald R. Ford ready to deploy




It seems the supply-chain problems affecting the US private sector are also challenging the US military in certain areas.
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Far more normal than most would guess. When I first got to my squadron, we continuously had 3 of 11 aircraft down, being used as "rob birds", the parts from those planes going to keep the other 8 flying. Cannibalization rate was a tracked metric for all squadrons.
 
Redress said:
Far more normal than most would guess. When I first got to my squadron, we continuously had 3 of 11 aircraft down, being used as "rob birds", the parts from those planes going to keep the other 8 flying. Cannibalization rate was a tracked metric for all squadrons.
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In the army motor pool it was common to rob downed trucks, though we only did it when mission dictated, ie if we needed a minimum of 8 fuelers up at all times to make sure the birds were fueled, and 2 fuelers were already down, we would take parts to keep the minimum number up to ensure mission success. However we would not take from others just to repair something that was not a priority.

I assume it was the same in the navy, where parts were taken from downed aircraft to ensure a minimum number of functional aircraft stayed in service.
 
beerftw said:
In the army motor pool it was common to rob downed trucks, though we only did it when mission dictated, ie if we needed a minimum of 8 fuelers up at all times to make sure the birds were fueled, and 2 fuelers were already down, we would take parts to keep the minimum number up to ensure mission success. However we would not take from others just to repair something that was not a priority.

I assume it was the same in the navy, where parts were taken from downed aircraft to ensure a minimum number of functional aircraft stayed in service.
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When at sea, supply is a nightmare, and moving aircraft from the hanger deck to the flight deck could be quite the evolution. As such, robbing birds, especially for maintenance issues discovered during launch, was common(as in, multiple times a day). The older the aircraft, the more of a need for rob birds. When I first got to my squadron, we had the oldest F-18s in the fleet(lot 7s), and finding all the issues that 18s had when they aged(stress cracks in bulkheads, oh my!), and as such, at the best of times, we had 3 aircraft down and being used as rob birds at all times, and even when ashore, we worked 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts(sometimes 7 days).

Also note that aircraft parts are expensive! New parts are rare, we expected intermediate level maintenance(AIMD) to fix old parts and put them back into the supply chain. Older, repaired multiple times parts do not tend to last long(and all too often, parts worked fine on the AIMD test bench, but not at all in the aircraft, resulting in parts making rapid cycles from squadron to AIMD to supply to squadron to AIMD to supply). Military aircraft being launched by catapult, then recovered by arresting gear undergo massive stress every single flight, so maintenance issues where very common.
 
beerftw said:
cannibalizing parts is nothing new, however the sudden urgency likely has to do with a sudden demand to use it as a show of force, likely near russia or china, as the ship was never fully ready and it was going to take time no matter what to get the first of a new class fully working with all the bugs worked out.

As much as they praise the ford class, you would think they wanted more of them, but again my guess is they suddenly want it operational for a show of force moment, as logistics aside, the goal was to build more of them, and you do not take from one non functional carrier to fix another never functional carrier of a brand new class unless you want it out there quickly.
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My comment was more towards the corporate speak talking about mature supply chain systems. A CYA statement rather than a real program.

I know they do take parts from one item to keep others operational, but as you say for a newish vessel to require parts from an under construction vessel is not a good look
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
My comment was more towards the corporate speak talking about mature supply chain systems. A CYA statement rather than a real program.

I know they do take parts from one item to keep others operational, but as you say for a newish vessel to require parts from an under construction vessel is not a good look
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The not good look is likely a rush to use it as show of force, it's operation to now has been as a testbed, to find flaws and correct them on both the first model and the future models, so far it has not been used as a serious aircraft carrier as they are still working out the problems.

And yes corporate speak is a bunch of cya, there should have been multiple extras produced with the original aircraft carrier of everything common expected to fail. When aircraft are purchased an aircraft costing 30 mil each may be around 100 mil each after total cost because they include spare parts for the expected life and use of the aircraft as well as training for operation and maintenance.

I do not understand why an aircraft carrier would not include those extra parts needed for base functioning as part of the construction deal, the only logical answer I can think of was it was a test bed and they did not know what they would need, in which corporate types should have came forward and said such.
 
Redress said:
When at sea, supply is a nightmare, and moving aircraft from the hanger deck to the flight deck could be quite the evolution. As such, robbing birds, especially for maintenance issues discovered during launch, was common(as in, multiple times a day). The older the aircraft, the more of a need for rob birds. When I first got to my squadron, we had the oldest F-18s in the fleet(lot 7s), and finding all the issues that 18s had when they aged(stress cracks in bulkheads, oh my!), and as such, at the best of times, we had 3 aircraft down and being used as rob birds at all times, and even when ashore, we worked 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts(sometimes 7 days).

Also note that aircraft parts are expensive! New parts are rare, we expected intermediate level maintenance(AIMD) to fix old parts and put them back into the supply chain. Older, repaired multiple times parts do not tend to last long(and all too often, parts worked fine on the AIMD test bench, but not at all in the aircraft, resulting in parts making rapid cycles from squadron to AIMD to supply to squadron to AIMD to supply). Military aircraft being launched by catapult, then recovered by arresting gear undergo massive stress every single flight, so maintenance issues where very common.
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It is going to be interesting collecting the data about nose gear fatigue once enough carrier electromagnetic launches can be correlated.
I wonder if tail hooks are going to be EM too... never heard such.
 
fortune said:
It is going to be interesting collecting the data about nose gear fatigue once enough carrier electromagnetic launches can be correlated.
I wonder if tail hooks are going to be EM too... never heard such.
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I do not know enough to say about the nose gear fatigue with the new magnetic cats, but it seems unlikely it would be a problem. As I understand it, they are actually able to more greatly control the force of the shuttle when they launch, and vary it in the launch process, which I would think would reduce stress.

EM tailhooks, if they ever happen, would be way off in the future. I just do not see how they could make that work. On the other hand, speaking of EM, I do know that railguns are going to be a part of navy ships sooner rather than later.
 
Redress said:
I do not know enough to say about the nose gear fatigue with the new magnetic cats, but it seems unlikely it would be a problem. As I understand it, they are actually able to more greatly control the force of the shuttle when they launch, and vary it in the launch process, which I would think would reduce stress.

EM tailhooks, if they ever happen, would be way off in the future. I just do not see how they could make that work. On the other hand, speaking of EM, I do know that railguns are going to be a part of navy ships sooner rather than later.
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I thought the US navy had given up on rail guns and is moving towards lasers
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
I thought the US navy had given up on rail guns and is moving towards lasers
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Railgun R&D is on hold while they work out issues with barrel wear and the like and work on conventional hypersonic guns, but it will be started up again soon as I understand it.
 
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