As the fleet grapples with coronavirus, the US Navy's newest aircraft carrier hit a major operational milestone
Before flight deck and carrier air-traffic control certification, the Ford did Precision Approach Landing Systems certification. PALS is a requirement for flight operations. along with air-traffic controllers, it aids pilots in night or bad-weather landings and guides them to a good starting position for approaches.
The Ford's carrier air-traffic control center team assisted the flight-deck certification and had to complete its own certification in concert with it. CATCC certification was the culmination of a process that started at the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Florida last year.
Since that process began in October 2019, instructors from the training center have been working with Ford sailors during every phase — testing the sailors' practical knowledge, reviewing their checklists, and observing their recovery operations.
That training was vital to the Ford sailors' success this month. "We had no rust to knock off," said Chief Air Traffic Controller Lavese McCray. "We've tested and trained for so many operations that it made the [certification] scenarios look easy."
Inspectors from Naval Air Forces Atlantic praised the carrier air-traffic control center sailors in their certification letter, according to the release.
"It was very apparent the entire CATCC team put forth a great deal of effort preparing for their CATCC certification," the letter said. "All CATCC functional areas were outstanding. Additionally, the leadership and expertise exhibited by the Air Operations Officer and his staff were extremely evident throughout the course of the entire week."
The certification process is meant to test pilots and crews on operations they'll face when deployed. In one recovery scenario, aircraft were stacked behind the Ford in 2-mile increments, waiting to land every minute, which deployment-ready aircraft carriers are required to be able to do. The Ford landed aircraft 55 seconds apart.
"The human element critical to [flight deck certification] is the relationship between ship's company and the air wing in the 'black top ballet' of flight deck operations," the release said. "During hours-long evolutions, the teams work together to communicate pilots' status, their requirements, and provide them services."
The March 20 certifications came a day after the Ford's 1,000 recovery of a fixed-wing aircraft using its Advanced Arresting Gear on March 19 at 5:13 p.m. Moments later, the ship had its 1,000 launch with its Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System.
The Ford's first fixed-wing recovery and launch using AAG and EMALS were on July 28, 2017.
AAG and EMALS have been two of the most nettlesome of the Ford's many new technologies, exceeded in their growing pains perhaps only by the Advanced Weapons Elevators, which are still not finished.
The Ford has the first new carrier design since the 1960s, which added to the difficulty of its construction. AAG and EMALS are both meant to support the greater energy requirements of future air wings and operate more safely than similar gear on older Nimitz-class carriers.
The Ford's accomplishments come as the Navy grapples with a fleet-wide challenge in the coronavirus. The service's first case came on March 13, when a sailor on the USS Boxer, in port in San Diego, tested positive. The first underway case came on Tuesday on the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Tuesday that three cases were detected on the Theodore Roosevelt. He said those were the first cases on a deployed ship and that the affected personnel were awaiting transfer off the carrier.
The "Big Stick," which carries some 5,000 crew, visited Vietnam earlier this month. The Navy's top uniformed officer said Tuesday that it wasn't clear if the cases stemmed from that visit.
"Whenever we have a positive on any ship ... we're doing the forensics on each one of those cases to try and understand what kind of best practices, or the do's and the don'ts, that we can quickly promulgate fleet-wide," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said at the Pentagon.
Asked about specific policy changes, Gilday said, "we're on it" but "no specifics yet."
There are no reported cases on the Ford, which Gilday said Tuesday was also carrying "a couple of hundred shipyard workers" who were "working on many of her systems to continue to keep her at pace and on schedule" for deployment.
"We're very proud of the fact that they are out there at sea with us and that they're so committed to the Navy," Gilday said of the shipyard workers.
The Navy has clashed with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls over its work on the Ford.
But the Navy secretary said Tuesday that the service was in touch with industry partners to let them know it was aware of the challenge posed by the coronavirus.
"We rely particularly on our shipyards and our depots ... We need them to continue to operate because you can't lose those skills. We have to keep them maintained. So we've been very clear and very consistent in talking to our commercial partners," Modly said.
"We are also concerned about the health of their people. We don't want them putting them at risk either," Modly added. "But we just need to be aware of what they're doing in that regard, so that we can adjust our expectations about what they can deliver and when they can deliver."
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