Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) Lakehurst met virtually with small business representatives and contractors Dec. 9 at the Lakehurst Small Business Roundtable Industry Day.

Held annually, the roundtable meeting focuses on the current involvement of small businesses in support of NAWCAD Lakehurst’s Naval Aviation mission and provides an overview of upcoming contracting opportunities in Support Equipment (SE) and Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (ALRE).

USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) logged its 4,000th aircraft launch and recovery  on Sept. 10, showcasing the performance capabilities of the ship’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), as part of the aircraft carrier’s 18-month Post Delivery Test & Trials (PDT&T) period.

Capt. Kenneth Sterbenz, Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (ALRE) program manager (PMA-251) for EMALS and AAG, noted the milestone is a significant achievement for both the ALRE program and the Ford crew.

Jonathan Myers goes to work every day and tries to break stuff.

Deck lights, pulley systems and network switch racks are all items that have seen his wrath. On this particular day, it’s a deck edge light for USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) that is getting the business – it’s being heated to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and submerged in a tank of 55-degree water, a stress test designed to see if it can withstand the realities of life on a ship.

The Navy’s newest aircraft recovery system, Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), successfully completed the system’s most demanding test event to date with 22 aircraft arrestments in just over 26 minutes at the Runway Arrested Landing Site (RALS) in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

The two-day series of testing Oct. 23-24 evaluated the AAG thermal management system’s ability to remove excess heat generated during fast-paced flight operations as experienced aboard the aircraft carrier to validate the system’s capability to meet USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) operational requirements.