Navy Jets With Extra Fuel Can’t Be Launched Off New U.S. Carrier - Bloomberg Politics: The U.S. Navy’s top warplanes can’t belaunched off its newest aircraft carrier if they’re carryingfuel tanks needed to extend their flight range because theship’s high-tech catapults cause too much wear.
Military weapons testers view this as a deficiency thatwould “preclude the Navy from conducting normal operations” on the USS Gerald R. Ford until it’s corrected, said Air Force MajorEric Badger, spokesman for the Pentagon’s testing office, in an e-mail.
The previously undisclosed troubles with the catapultsystem from San Diego-based General Atomics add to shortcomingsfor the first in a new class of aircraft carriers being built byNewport News, Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.
