General Atomics Completes First Aircraft Arrestment Of Super Hornet

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) completed the first aircraft arrestment made with the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) on March 31.

GA-EMS, in collaboration with the US Navy, conducted the arrestment of an F/A-18E Super Hornet at the Runway Arrested Landing Site (RALS) located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

AAG is a state-of-the-art turbo-electric system designed for controlled and reliable deceleration during aircraft recovery operations on carriers.

"The first aircraft arrestment marks a major milestone in demonstrating AAG performance and capability," stated Scott Forney, President of GA-EMS. "This also represents the culmination of many man-hours of design and development efforts, and a definitive step toward bringing this transformational technology into the next phase of testing and optimization."

"More than 1,200 successful dead load arrestments have been completed at the Jet Car Test Site in Lakehurst, New Jersey," stated Dean Key, Director, Launch and Recovery Production Programs and AAG Design and Development. "Now, with the arrestment of aircraft, we take an important step in verifying the dynamic controls and system performance as a whole. We're extremely proud of this accomplishment, and are excited to continue down this path of success as the AAG system undergoes additional aircraft arrestment testing, and demonstration activity."

AAG is installed aboard Pre-Commissioning Unit Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), and is scheduled for installation on the future John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), which is currently under construction. The company's Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which uses electromagnetic technology to launch aircraft from the deck of naval aircraft carriers, is also installed and undergoing dead load testing on CVN 78. In addition to AAG, EMALS is scheduled for installation on CVN 79.