The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier (file photo)
Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg: Flawed Bomb Elevators Leave Inhofe Leery of Buying Two Carriers
* ‘The elevators still don’t work,’ Senate panel’s chief says
* Inhofe stops short of ruling out two-in-one carrier contract
The new head of the Senate Armed Services panel says he’s leery of backing the Pentagon’s plan to buy two aircraft carriers in one contract so long as contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. is struggling to fix the elevators needed to lift bombs from below deck.
“I think the case for two right now is weaker because of the lack of success in getting everything working” on the USS Gerald R. Ford, the first vessel in the new class of carriers, Senator James Inhofe said in an interview. The Oklahoma Republican spoke after joining Navy officials in a visit Monday to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Newport News, Virginia.
Inhofe recalled that his last such visit was in 2015, when the Navy said that the $13 billion Ford was on the cusp of delivery. It was delivered in May 2017, but the contractor hasn’t completed installing, testing and certifying its 11 munitions elevators.
Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters in August that the elevators are “our open Achilles Heel.”
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WNU Editor: This blog covers the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier program very closely. When there is something new .... I will always post it. But even with this coverage, I was not aware (until today) that the 11 munitions elevators were not working. You just have to wonder what else is not working, and what they are not telling us.
