This stress "will preclude the Navy from conducting normal operations of the F/A-18A-F and EA-18G from CVN 78", according to DOTES, which said the problem had first been noticed in 2014.
In addition, EMALS could not "readily" be electrically isolated for maintenance, which DOTE warned "will preclude some types of EMALS and AAG (Advanced Arresting Gear) maintenance during flight operations", decreasing their operational availability.
The Gerald R. Ford is supposed to be able to launch 160 sorties in a 12-hour day – an average of one takeoff or landing every 4.5 minutes. She is supposed to be able to surge to 270 sorties in a 24-hour period.
Britain considered fitting EMALS to its two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers right back at the design stage. Indeed, the ability to add catapults and arrester gear to the ships was specified right from the start.
Lewis Page, late of this parish, summed up what happened when the government tried to exercise that option: "... it later got rescinded, on the grounds that putting catapults into the ships was not going to cost £900m – as the 2010 [Strategic Defence and Security Review] had estimated – but actually £2bn for [HMS] Prince of Wales and maybe £3bn for Queen Elizabeth. This would double the projected price of the two ships."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/11/us_navy_emals_woes_uss_gerald_r_ford/Lots of issues and very expensive even if it *were* to work. Maybe just try on ONE carrier at first.
Seems risky....
I wouldn't laugh if I were you. You guys are building boats without any launch system at all which is strange for an aircraft carrier....
Britain's new aircraft carriers have no catapult system at all. The only fast jets capable of flying from them are Harriers (as operated by the US Marine Corps) and the F-35B. HMS Queen Elizabeth, whose sea trials date keeps slipping back to later and later this year, is planned to carry about 20 F-35s on her first operational deployment to the South China Sea in 2021.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/11/us_navy_emals_woes_uss_gerald_r_ford/