US Navy considers Ford-class aircraft carrier redesign to match Trump's WWII island style preference.

On August 16, 2026, the U.S. Navy initiated an operational and technical evaluation regarding whether to move the island superstructure on future Ford-class aircraft carriers from its current far-aft placement toward amidships, following directive preferences from President Donald Trump. The assessment will likely focus on whether relocating the command structure toward a World War II-era configuration would negatively impact flight deck operations, sortie generation rates, and recovery airflow dynamics. This design review also follows an August 13 directive ordering the Navy to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators on the future USS Doris Miller with steam catapults and hydraulic systems.

The U.S. Navy is assessing the operational and technical impacts of moving the Ford-class carrier island 140 feet forward, evaluating effects on deck space, aircraft movement cycles, and landing-lane air turbulence. Previous Navy analyses determined that relocating the superstructure could incur multi-billion-dollar costs and major schedule delays across future hulls projected at $22 billion each.

Related topic: Could US Iowa-class battleships really return to service after Trump’s surprise remarks?

The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) places its island much farther aft so more aircraft can be parked and moved directly toward the catapults without interfering with landings, whereas USS Enterprise (CV-6)'s amidships island suited a WWII straight flight deck where launching and landing aircraft largely occurred one after the other rather than simultaneously. (Picture source: US Navy)

On August 16, 2026, the Washington Post revealed that the U.S. Navy was evaluating whether the island on future Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers should be shifted forward from its current far-aft position toward amidships, following President Donald Trump's preference for the proportions of World War II carriers such as USS Lexington, USS Yorktown, and USS Essex. Compared with the Nimitz class, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) places an island roughly 30% smaller, 42.7 m farther aft and farther outboard, creating a larger uninterrupted aircraft-working area between the bow catapults, waist catapults, aircraft elevators, and the island. Three operational reasons have been identified for that position: increasing aircraft parking close to the catapults, reducing the number and distance of aircraft movements required before launch, and moving island-generated turbulent airflow farther from the recovery environment.

A similar examination during Trump's first administration concluded that island relocation could cost billions of dollars and impose major schedule delays. The question has become more consequential because, on August 13, 2026, Trump separately ordered the US Navy to prepare the replacement of the Ford-class' EMALS and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam catapults and hydraulic systems on the future USS Doris Miller. As the Navy's long-term force plan allows for as many as 10 Ford-class ships, and future hulls are projected at about $22 billion each, these two decisions are therefore not about whether a redesign is technically possible, but whether it produces enough measurable gains to justify remodifying a mature carrier configuration. The first measurable effect would concern deck geometry. Moving the island 140 ft forward would not necessarily reduce the total square footage of the flight deck, but it would place thousands of tons of structure and associated equipment inside a section of deck whose value comes from being open and contiguous.

On Ford-class carriers, fighter jets can be parked, inspected, fueled, and armed in the large area ahead of the island, then moved toward the bow or waist catapults without first having to pass around the superstructure. In a more central arrangement, a larger share of the air wing would necessarily be parked behind the island relative to the launch positions. During simultaneous launch and recovery operations, those aircraft cannot simply move diagonally across any available space because the angled landing area is an active recovery lane that has to remain clear. The Ford arrangement was designed specifically to reduce this problem: aircraft remain concentrated forward of the island so movement toward the catapults is shorter and less likely to conflict with recovery operations. The effect can be measured through deck-cycle data rather than appearance.

Relevant indicators include how many F/A-18E/Fs, EA-18Gs, F-35Cs, E-2Ds and support aircraft can be spotted ahead of the island; average tractor distance from a parking position to Catapults 1 through 4; how many aircraft must be repositioned before launching the next aircraft; how frequently a launch movement crosses or approaches the angled landing area; and how long the deck must be respotted after a recovery cycle. A forward island that forces even several additional aircraft movements during each launch sequence would accumulate delays across dozens of launches during a 12-hour flying period. Conversely, if the US Navy can show through deck simulations and live testing that a forward island preserves the same number of forward spots, equivalent tow distances and equivalent launch-cycle times, then the operational penalty would be smaller. No such quantified advantage for moving the island forward has yet been identified. 

That geometry matters because the Ford's island was designed together with an aviation-handling architecture intended to remove specific bottlenecks found on Nimitz-class carriers. The USS Nimitz uses four deck-edge aircraft elevators, while the USS Gerald R. Ford uses three because the US Navy studies concluded that moving aircraft between the hangar and flight deck was not the principal limit on sortie generation. Removing one aircraft elevator also removes one large deck-edge opening and operating zone that must be kept clear whenever the elevator is moving, producing more continuous parking and servicing space. The Ford-class then uses 11 Advanced Weapons Elevators to move ordnance from magazines and below-deck assembly areas to locations closer to the aircraft, reducing the need to accumulate weapons in a large flight-deck bomb farm near the island and then move them horizontally across congested deck areas.

The revised weapons flow was considered the largest individual contributor to the intended increase in sortie generation rate, while the aft island supports that system by leaving more room for armed aircraft to be staged toward the launch end of the ship. In-deck fueling stations solve another sequencing problem by allowing aircraft to receive fuel near their parking spots instead of extending hoses across rows of aircraft, where servicing one jet can prevent another from moving. The numerical objective for the complete Ford-class architecture was 160 sorties during a sustained 12-hour flying day, compared with 120 for Nimitz-class carriers, a 40-sortie or 33.3% increase, and 270 sorties during a 24-hour surge compared with 240, a 30-sortie or 12.5% increase. Island location by itself does not generate those figures, but moving it forward affects the same aircraft-flow problem addressed by the elevator locations, weapons routes, and fueling points. Recovery operations create a different set of numerical and aerodynamic requirements.

The Ford's island was moved aft partly to place its aerodynamic wake farther away from aircraft approaching the angled landing area, reducing the probability that disturbed airflow generated by the island, mast, and antennas will affect the aircraft close to touchdown. The issue is not simply that a carrier island creates turbulence, because every large superstructure does; the question is where the wake lies under different relative wind conditions and how strong that wake remains when it crosses the approach path. Moving the island tens of meters forward changes the wake's relationship with the landing area and would require computational fluid dynamics work, wind testing, and flight validation over different wind-over-deck speeds and angles. Modern carrier recoveries occur within seconds of one another, so even a small change that increases approach corrections or requires greater aircraft spacing can reduce recovery throughput over a complete cycle.

The US Navy would have to compare turbulence intensity, approach stability, landing interval, wave-off frequency, bolter conditions, and the ability to keep aircraft parked close to the recovery lane under the existing and proposed arrangements. The current location is itself a compromise. Moving the bridge 140 ft farther aft than on the Nimitz-class increases the forward visual shadow zone for the bridge team, reducing direct visibility toward portions of the bow, but the US Navy accepted that disadvantage because aircraft circulation and working space were considered more valuable. Below the flight deck, the redesign would involve considerably more than cutting away the existing island foundation and installing another one farther forward. The island contains the bridge, Primary Flight Control, command spaces, communications equipment, navigation equipment, sensors, antennas and personnel spaces, all of which depend on electrical power, data connections, chilled-water or other cooling services, ventilation, access routes and structural support.

Moving those functions forward requires new vertical trunks and cable runs through internal carrier spaces already designed around a fixed arrangement. The flight-deck structure beneath the proposed location would have to carry loads different from those assumed when the ship was designed, while the original location would require a new structural and aviation arrangement after the island was removed. Because the island places substantial steel and equipment high above the waterline, moving it longitudinally also changes trim and longitudinal weight distribution and has to be incorporated into stability and loading calculations. Weight and buoyancy were specifically identified among the variables affected by the proposed relocation.

Antenna relocation creates another integration problem because changing the position of radar arrays, communications antennas, and other emitters changes line-of-sight sectors, physical masking, and electromagnetic relationships between systems. Exhaust, ventilation discharge, and intakes also have to be reconsidered so that gases and heat do not create unacceptable conditions for the flight deck or sensors. The result would be a new Ford-class configuration, not a cosmetic revamp of the existing ship, which explains why the earlier US Navy examination produced a redesign estimate measured in billions of dollars rather than tens or hundreds of millions. The timing of the change creates a second cost mechanism independent of the engineering work itself.

The USS Gerald R. Ford was delivered in 2017 after a development and construction period that extended roughly 17 years, cost more than $13 billion, and encountered repeated delays associated with new technologies. The USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) has also experienced schedule problems, including work involving Advanced Arresting Gear and Advanced Weapons Elevators; during its latest trial period, seven of its 11 weapons elevators had completed construction, enough to provide access to all magazines for training and certification. The USS Enterprise (CVN-80) and USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) have already progressed through material procurement, fabrication, and shipyard construction, which means an island change introduced on either hull would potentially invalidate completed drawings, cable routes, ventilation arrangements, work packages, and purchased material.

Even if relocation begins only with CVN-82, the Navy would create at least two major variants within the same carrier class. CVN-78 through CVN-80 would retain the aft island and EMALS, while later ships could combine another island position with steam catapults and hydraulic weapons elevators. That divergence would remain for decades because carrier maintenance procedures, training, modernization packages, spare equipment, shipyard planning, and aviation procedures would no longer be fully common across the class. The financial scale is also important. At $22 billion for a future Ford-class carrier, a 1% increase equals $220 million, a 2% increase $440 million, a 3% increase $660 million, and a 5% increase $1.1 billion per ship. A redesign applied across seven remaining carriers at only 3% additional ship cost would therefore represent $4.62 billion before even considering delays, nonrecurring engineering, discarded material, or the cost of maintaining multiple configurations.

The island proposal would also arrive at the same time as a second major CVN-81 redesign involving systems already in production. General Atomics received a $1.2 billion contract associated with EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear for Doris Miller, and nearly 50% of that production had been completed when the administration directed the Navy to prepare for a return to steam catapults and hydraulic systems. The manpower implications are measurable. EMALS reduced the catapult operating crew from roughly a dozen sailors under the steam arrangement to about two for the electromagnetic system, while one estimate placed Ford's personnel and maintenance savings at about $100 million per year. The Navy entered 2026 with roughly 20,000 unfilled billets across the fleet, making a return to a more manpower-intensive launch system relevant not only to procurement cost but also to carrier crewing.

Steam catapult manufacturing presents another issue because the Navy acquired its last set about 20 years ago, requiring production capability and associated suppliers to be re-established. The August 13 policy nevertheless identifies repeated design changes as a contributor to cost growth and delays, cites backlogs across six major Navy shipbuilding programs, directs NAVSEA to prevent redesign of mature parent designs, and simultaneously calls for a fifth public Navy shipyard and greater repair capacity for nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. The practical contradiction is that naval architects, engineers, suppliers, and shipyard planners needed to redesign Ford's island, catapults, and weapons elevators are drawn from the same limited industrial workforce that the administration is trying to use to increase construction and maintenance throughput.

For Congress, the relevant metric is therefore opportunity cost: how many engineering hours, shipyard work packages, and supplier production slots would be redirected from delivering carriers or repairing the existing fleet in order to modify mature ships. The history from USS Lexington (CV-2) to USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) also shows that U.S. carrier island placement changed when machinery or flight-deck operations changed. The Lexington-class carriers entered service in 1927 with islands near amidships because their conversion from battlecruisers left them with large boiler machinery and funnel arrangements, while their roughly 270.7 m straight flight decks supported air groups of nearly 80 aircraft operating through largely sequential launch and recovery cycles.

USS Enterprise (CV-6), of the Yorktown class, commissioned in 1938, used an approximately 246.6 m straight flight deck and carried roughly 80 to 90 aircraft, while the Essex-class expanded the concept to a flight deck about 862 ft long and 108 ft wide, standard displacement near 27,000 tons, and wartime air groups commonly reaching 90 to 100 aircraft. The island remained broadly amidships because an aircraft recovering on the axial deck effectively occupied the same longitudinal space used for launch, reducing the value of creating continuous traffic routes between recovery, parking, and catapults. USS Midway, commissioned on September 10, 1945, initially followed that model despite theoretical capacity reaching 130 aircraft.

But its 1950s conversion to an angled flight deck, steam catapults, and mirror landing system fundamentally changed the problem by allowing recovery along a port-side diagonal lane while aircraft elsewhere could be positioned for launch. The USS Forrestal entered service in 1955 with a relatively forward island during the first generation of purpose-designed jet supercarriers, but the USS Kitty Hawk in 1961 deliberately shifted the island aft so that two starboard aircraft elevators, rather than one, could be positioned forward of it; another starboard elevator remained aft, and a port elevator sat near the stern. Nuclear propulsion on USS Enterprise (CVN-65) removed the large boiler-funnel constraint, then USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) refined the Kitty Hawk arrangement, and the 332.8 m Nimitz class standardized an aft-of-center island with four catapults and four deck-edge elevators across 10 carriers.

The Ford-class then reduced island footprint by 30%, moved it another 140 ft aft, reduced aircraft elevators from four to three, introduced 11 weapons elevators, and reorganized refueling and weapons movement around a forward aircraft-working area designed to support 160 sustained sorties versus 120 for Nimitz and 270 surge sorties versus 240. Moving the island back toward the WWII-era position would therefore reverse a 65-year progression in which the island migrated aft as angled-deck carriers increasingly prioritized simultaneous recovery, servicing, aircraft movement, and launch. The existing Ford location has three identifiable operational outputs to protect: more aircraft spots close to launch positions, fewer aircraft movements before launch, and less turbulence in the recovery area, while the proposed forward position has not yet been associated with a quantified increase in sortie rate, aircraft capacity, launch efficiency, or recovery performance.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News