13:42 GMT, October 21, 2009 San Diego, Calif. | General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems Division (GA-EMS) completed the first phase of Extended Reliability Testing (ERT) on the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) in its Rancho Bernardo, Calif. facility. The AAG is the Navy’s next generation arresting system for aircraft carriers. It replaces the current Mark 7 arresting gear

Phase 1 of the ERT cycled the AAG hardware through more than 5,400 shipboard-representative arrestments to obtain reliability growth data and to verify the functionality of the real-time control software. This phase of ERT was also conducted to reduce the risks associated with future dead-load arrestment testing beginning spring 2010 followed by aircraft arrestment testing scheduled for late 2010.

The second phase of ERT will begin February 2011 in GA’s Tupelo, Miss. manufacturing and test facility and will cycle the equipment for an additional 104,000 cycles. “Transfer of the ERT facility to the GA-EMS manufacture and test facility will help reduce cost for the program,” stated Division Vice President Scott Forney. “GA-EMS remains committed to reducing overall production costs for aircraft launch and recovery equipment.”

AAG is on schedule to be installed on the CVN 78, and will be back-fit into several Nimitz-class carriers concurrent with other scheduled maintenance.