The U.S. Navy's fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, may never use the electromagnetic catapults it was designed for. President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum on August 13 ordering the Pentagon and the Navy to present a plan within 60 days to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, with older steam catapults and hydraulic weapons elevators instead.
This is wild. We are talking about the most advanced aircraft carriers ever built. The Gerald R. Ford class was supposed to be the future. EMALS uses electromagnetic coils under the deck to accelerate aircraft with a smooth push and pull. No jolt. Less wear on the planes. More control over launch speed. The system has been in service on the USS Gerald R. Ford since 2017. It will stay on the USS John F. Kennedy, commissioning in March 2027. It will stay on the USS Enterprise, due in 2030. But starting with the Doris Miller, the Navy may have to go back to steam.
Trump has criticized EMALS for years. He told Time magazine about it in 2017. He has called it unreliable. He has said it costs too much. Now he has made it policy. The memo does not order the removal of EMALS from carriers already built or in early construction. It applies to the fourth ship and the six Ford-class carriers the Navy plans to build after that. The directive gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao two months to deliver a timeline and a cost estimate.
I get the instinct. New tech can fail. I have shipped code that looked perfect in testing and broke in production. I have watched dashboards light up red at 3 a.m. because something I trusted did not hold. When you are responsible for people's lives, you want systems that work. You want to avoid surprises. Steam catapults are old. They are proven. They have launched thousands of aircraft from Nimitz-class carriers for decades. The Navy knows how to maintain them. The supply chain exists. The training pipelines exist.
But here is the catch.
Going back to steam on a ship designed for electromagnets is not a simple swap. The Doris Miller is already under construction at HII Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. The hull, the deck, the internal layout, the power distribution, all of it was engineered around EMALS. Steam catapults need high-pressure steam lines. They need different machinery spaces. They need different safety systems. The Navy retired this equipment more than twenty years ago. Restarting production means retooling suppliers, requalifying parts, and retraining crews. The Wall Street Journal reported the reversal could cost billions of dollars. It could also delay the ship further. The Doris Miller is already two years behind schedule.
EMALS is not perfect. Early deployments had reliability issues. The Navy has been working through them. In August, while the White House study began, the Navy ordered $42.9 million in spare parts from General Atomics to support EMALS and the Advanced Arresting Gear on carriers already in the fleet. That is not a sign of a system being abandoned. That is a sign of a system being sustained. Navy officials have said EMALS saves wear on both aircraft and the catapult system itself. The electromagnetic launch is smoother. It can handle a wider range of aircraft weights, from light drones to heavy fighters, without the violent jerk of steam.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, a strong supporter of Trump's defense budget, has said he hopes the president will change his mind. He said the data shows EMALS is better for the carriers. He is not alone. Retired USSF Colonel Bree Fram wrote that the country is now in danger of taking the kind of risks the president's own memorandum warns about. The memo itself speaks of avoiding costly mistakes and maintaining readiness. Yet the order may do the opposite.
There is also the question of what this signals. The U.S. Navy's carrier fleet is its most visible instrument of power. The Ford class was meant to show that America could build and field the next generation of naval technology. Reverting to steam on new ships sends a different message. It says that when new systems get hard, we go back. It says that innovation is optional. Other countries are watching. India is pursuing EMALS for its future carriers. If the U.S. walks away, it may make it harder for allies to justify the investment.
None of this is decided yet. The 60-day plan is just a plan. Congress would have to fund the change. The Navy would have to prove it is technically feasible. The memo does not mean steam machinery will immediately be installed aboard the Doris Miller. But the direction is clear. The White House wants steam. The Navy must now show what that would cost and how long it would take.
I am not a naval engineer. I do not know the exact stress loads on a catapult shuttle or the failure modes of a linear induction motor. I do know what it feels like to bet on a new system and watch it wobble. I also know what it feels like to stick with old tools because they are safe, only to realize later that the old tools are holding you back. EMALS was supposed to be the leap. It was supposed to make the Ford class more flexible, more efficient, more ready for the next fifty years.
Now the Navy may have to tear out the future and rebuild the past.