Trump orders Pentagon to redesign US aircraft carrier to use steam catapults to launch jets

President has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too ‘complicated’

After nearly a decade of loudly complaining about the fact that modern US aircraft carriers use electromagnetic systems to launch fighter jets instead of steam-powered catapults, Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace the modern system with the old-fashioned catapults he prefers.

Trump signed https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/rebuilding-the-united-states-navy-and-americas-shipbuilding-industrial-base/">a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, to make the change he has had his heart set on since at least 2017, when he https://time.com/4775040/donald-trump-time-interview-being-president/">first described his idea to Time magazine.