USS Doris Miller Steam Catapult Plan Risks Costly Redesign and Further Delays

USS Doris Miller is already in production around an electromagnetic aircraft-launch architecture, yet the Pentagon now has 60 days to plan how to replace it with steam equipment. An August 13 presidential memorandum also calls for the carrier’s electrically driven Advanced Weapons Elevators to be replaced by hydraulic systems, with timelines and resource requirements included in the plan.

This is not an approved or funded redesign yet. The Navy has not announced a related delivery change, and Congress would still have to appropriate money for implementation. Even so, the planning directive introduces another source of cost and schedule uncertainty for a carrier due in February 2034 already two years later than previously planned. Reuters estimated that redesigning the catapult system alone could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

A carrier-wide integration problem

A catapult may be most visible on the flight deck, but its supporting machinery is embedded in the ship. The Ford class was designed around an electromagnetic aircraft-launch system, while a steam catapult depends on fundamentally different infrastructure. Substituting one for the other therefore reaches beyond exchanging deck hardware: engineering teams would have to assess machinery arrangements, interfaces, controls, construction sequencing and the effects on equipment already designed or installed around the current configuration.

The elevator reversal creates a separate integration workload. Those systems move weapons between internal magazines and the flight deck, making their machinery and controls part of the carrier’s internal arrangement. The memorandum combines both changes in one planning requirement, increasing the number of interfaces that must be reexamined while construction is underway.

Supplier progress makes timing especially consequential. General Atomics says nearly 50% of its electromagnetic launch and arresting-gear production for Doris Miller is complete. That does not mean all completed work would automatically be discarded, but the Pentagon must determine what can still be used, what would require modification and what contract changes would follow. The supplier has warned that changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule and integration risks.

Steam shifts costs toward labor and maintenance

Steam catapults are proven equipment and remain operational aboard Nimitz-class carriers. Their maturity, however, does not make them a drop-in answer for a Ford-class hull. The relevant comparison is not simply whether steam can launch aircraft; it is what infrastructure and continuing labor the Navy must buy to put steam machinery into a ship designed for electromagnetic launch.

The Navy credits electromagnetic catapults with smoother aircraft acceleration, reduced maintenance and lower manpower requirements. The operating crew is about two sailors, compared with roughly a dozen for a steam catapult. Actual carrier staffing is determined across the ship rather than by one workstation alone, but that difference illustrates the design trade: steam could place more recurring demand on personnel, training and maintenance over decades of service.

That matters because acquisition cost is only one part of public expense. A redesign could require taxpayers to pay for new engineering and contract modifications now, then support a more labor-intensive arrangement throughout the carrier’s operating life. Until the Pentagon supplies detailed estimates, the total cost and staffing effect remain unresolved.

A split Ford-class fleet

The first three Ford-class carriers USS Gerald R. Ford, the future USS John F. Kennedy and the future USS Enterprise are not covered by the CVN-81 directive and will retain electromagnetic launch equipment. If Doris Miller changes to steam, the Navy could operate two launch configurations within one carrier class.

That split could affect training, maintenance procedures, spare-parts planning and technical support. The Navy already has experience sustaining steam catapults on the Nimitz class, but carrying that technology into one or more Ford-class ships would not erase the need to support electromagnetic systems on the other ships. Fleet commonality normally reduces duplicated support demands; a mixed configuration moves in the opposite direction.

The electromagnetic system is no longer merely developmental hardware. As of March 2026, USS Gerald R. Ford had completed 36,863 electromagnetic launches. That operating record does not settle every reliability, cost or maintenance question, but it changes the decision context: the proposed reversal concerns a fielded system with tens of thousands of launches, not an untested laboratory concept.

The Navy is separately evaluating whether to move Doris Miller’s command island. No implementation decision has been established, and that discussion is not part of the reported catapult cost estimate. Keeping the issues separate will be essential when assessing how much schedule and expense is attributable to each possible change.

The Pentagon’s 60-day plan must now put numbers and dates around the reversal, including what completed supplier work can be retained and whether the February 2034 delivery remains achievable. Until that plan and a corresponding funding decision emerge, steam catapults for USS Doris Miller remain a directed proposal with potentially substantial consequences not a completed design choice.

By David Whitaker — Associate editor for AMI’s aerospace and drone systems desk, translating flight systems, aircraft programs, spaceflight, and UAV developments into accessible technical stories.