Hagel Told New Carrier Unlikely to Meet Aircraft Goals
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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was warned last month that the U.S. Navy’s new aircraft carrier, the most expensive warship ever built, is “unlikely” to meet its goal for handling aircraft.
The USS Gerald R. Ford’s “sortie generation” rate -- the ability to launch and recover aircraft -- is based on “unrealistic assumptions,” and key launching systems “are currently suffering from development problems and have poor or unknown reliability,” Pentagon Director of Operational Testing Michael Gilmore told Hagel in a Dec. 9 memo.