President Trump has directed the U.S. Navy to implement significant design changes for Ford-class aircraft carriers, including a return to steam-powered catapults. The administration is also reviewing a proposal to move the ship's island—the multi-story command center tower—from the rear toward the middle of the vessel. Navy officials are currently conducting an internal review to assess the operational and engineering impacts of these directives.
The design changes follow a Thursday national security memo requiring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to provide a plan within 60 days to replace Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS) with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81. The Ford-class carriers were designed with EMALS and advanced weapons elevators to increase the rate of flight operations and accommodate a wider range of aircraft weights.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought stated that the current Ford-class design is too expensive and slow to build. Vought reported that costs have risen from $13 billion for the initial ship to an expected $18 billion for the USS Doris Miller. However, critics including Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) argued that reverting to steam catapults and shifting the island for aesthetic reasons would cause further delays, increase costs, and create risks for personnel.
Navy personnel and pilots would notice concrete changes in daily operations if these designs are implemented. Moving the island toward the middle of the deck could reduce the space available for parking and maneuvering fighter jets, potentially slowing down the "sortie generation rate," or the number of flights launched per day. Additionally, naval engineers noted that changing the location of the heavy command tower could affect the ship's center of gravity and stability, potentially causing oscillations that make flight operations more difficult during rough seas.
The shift back to steam catapults would also require the Navy to retrain its workforce and source older technology that hasn't been used since the Nimitz-class carriers. While EMALS was intended to launch a variety of aircraft weights, including light unmanned drones, a return to steam may limit future flight deck flexibility. The Navy is expected to deliver its review of the island placement and the plan for the catapult swap by October 2026, which will determine if the construction of future vessels like the USS Doris Miller is delayed.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, suggested that the Navy might conduct the required redesign studies without immediately incorporating them into ships currently under construction. He noted that because the actual construction of these future ships is years away, the service could potentially wait to see if the policy changes under a future administration. For now, the Navy continues to analyze performance data from the USS Gerald R. Ford’s recent 11-month deployment to justify the existing technology.