Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Gerald R. Ford's Magnetic Bomb Elevators Were Built to Lift 24,000 Pounds and They Have to Work. 68 Times Did Not Work

The USS Gerald R. Ford’s magnetic Advanced Weapons Elevators (AWEs)—designed to lift 24,000 pounds of ordnance at 150 feet per minute—have a troubled operating record, failing 68 times across 14,842 cycles, according to a DOT&E FY2022 report. Expert Isaac Seitz says the elevators were meant to boost sorties by about 30% compared with Nimitz-class systems, which handle 10,500 pounds at 100 feet per minute. In 2019, only two of 11 elevators were fully working, preventing the carrier from deploying. Integration and changing requirements delayed fixes until 2021, when all 11 reached operational status in December.