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WITH its cobbled roads, charming streets and historic buildings, Rye is considered one of the most beautiful destinations in England.

And it’s set to make a TV appearance too as the East Sussex town was used as the backdrop in a new period TV series coming to Netflix.

Last year, Rye transformed into the fictional town of Meryton for a new television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

TV crew and cast descended on the town in September to create a time-warp setting for Jane Austen’s novel.

Actors were spotted wearing period costumes and the streets were dressed to look like the 1800s.

The Netflix series is set to be released this autumn starring Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet, and Jack Lowden as Mr Darcy.

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The town is popular with tourists thanks to its traditionally English look and has even been dubbed the ‘new Cotswolds‘ by country lifestyle experts at Welligogs.

The experts described it as having a “storybook atmosphere” filled with “antique shops and independent boutiques”.

For shopping Mermaid Street is the place to be – it was also selected as being one the prettiest streets in Britain by The Telegraph.

While it might be miles away from Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, Rye shares lots of the same qualities as towns found in the Cotswolds like pretty cottages and independent shops.

The Cotswolds has rivers running through its villages, while Rye offers a beach escape for those who want to check out the seaside instead.

Camber Sands is just 10-minutes away in the car to get from the town to the dunes.

Head of Sun Travel (Digital) Caroline McGuire said: “The medieval town of Rye in East Sussex isn’t strictly seaside, but you can see the sea from its cobble streets and it has a harbour where boats sail out to the English Channel.

“Plus, if you go back as far as the 15th century, the sea came much closer to the foot of the hill the town is built on.

“It’s the perfect place to spend a day out – taking an hour and six minutes on the train from Kings Cross St Pancras.”

“If you fancy a morning on the beach, a bus runs from the town to the stunning Camber Sands beach – a three-mile stretch of golden sand backed by dunes.”

She continued: “Or you can for a six-mile circular walk from Rye to Winchelsea beach.

“Back in the town after lunch, there are plenty of fantastic pubs to choose from, my favourites being the 12th century Mermaid Inn and the George In Rye, as well as the Globe Inn Marsh on the outskirts of the town.

“Equally, you could book a taxi and check out Tillingham vineyard in nearby Peasmarsh, with its Michelin Green Star wine tours and excellent pizzas.”

“Make sure to save some time to rummage through the many, many antiques shops, as well as Knoops hot chocolate shop and the wonderfully old fashioned Britcher and Rivers sweet shop.”

Meta, parent company of Instagram and Facebook, is on trial over claims it sought to hook young users on its platforms despite mental health concerns.

The top executive at Instagram has admitted that few teenagers have used a feature meant to counter addiction before it was turned on by default, as hearings in a landmark trial against its parent company, Meta, continue in the United States.

Adam Mosseri testified on Tuesday as Meta’s trial – over accusations that it designed its platforms, including Facebook, to be addictive to young people – entered its second week.

Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, denied any suggestion by US states suing Meta that Instagram had stalled by not making the “Take a Break” feature the default setting for teenagers until September 2024, nearly three years after its launch.

“Most teens didn’t want it,” Mosseri said. “We decided to push forward with it anyway.”

Mosseri is a central witness in the lawsuit brought by 29 US states, in what experts call the biggest legal test yet of social media’s effects on young users.

Four of the states – California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey – have accused Meta of designing the platforms to hook young users, driving anxiety, depression and even suicide, while misleading consumers about the platforms’ safety.

All 29 states say Meta violated US federal law by improperly collecting and employing the personal data of children under 13 while they used its platforms.

The states are seeking approximately $200bn in damages from Meta.

‘Designed to fail’

Meta has rejected accusations that it sought to addict children, saying its research showed no clear link between adolescents’ social media use and a lack of wellbeing.

Under questioning from Jason Slothouber, a lawyer for Colorado, Mosseri acknowledged that the percentage of teenagers using Take a Break was in the low single digits before Instagram made it ⁠the default.

Take a Break encourages teenage users to close the app after a certain amount of time. Mosseri had estimated in a December 2021 blog post that more than 90 percent of teenagers who turned the feature on kept it on.

That number, however, referred to the number of those who had turned on the feature.

When asked whether Meta had disclosed its low adoption, which had reached only 1 or 2 percent of accounts, Mosseri admitted the company had not, but said the safety features were later turned on by default in Teen Accounts, which launched in 2024 and have parental controls.

Former Meta employees have said that features such as Take a Break and Quiet Mode were difficult to find and not widely used, casting doubt on whether they represented a serious effort by the company to limit screen time for young users.

“In my experience, Take a Break is a feature that’s designed to fail,” Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, testified last week.

George Volichenko, a data scientist who worked on safety features at Instagram in 2022 and 2023, likewise stated on Monday that adoption rates of such features were “very low” and that company leadership had declined to approve turning on Quiet Mode by default for young teenagers.

He added that turning on such features automatically would have had a “notable negative impact” on user engagement.

The trial could last six weeks.

Jurors are expected to issue an advisory verdict. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide whether Meta is liable and, if so, determine any civil penalties and changes to Facebook and Instagram.

The U.S. Navy’s Ford class aircraft carriers have been very much in the news in the past week, with huge changes to the core design now potentially on the horizon. Whether or not radical changes to the catapults, weapons elevators, and island superstructure on future ships in the class actually materialize remains to be seen. However, the design has already been changing in various other ways. This includes adding back in a feature that had been found on all Nimitz class carriers and other Cold War-era flattops before it – dedicated radar illuminators to guide surface-to-air missiles.

The illuminators are used to guide the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSMs). The need to add this feature is intertwined with a decision to integrate a replacement for the complex and troublesome Dual Band Radar (DBR) on all forthcoming carriers in the class after the USS Gerald R. Ford. The future USS John F. Kennedy is the first of those ships.

The Mk 95 radar illuminators on John F. Kennedy were particularly visible in pictures released last week of the ship leaving port in Newport News, Virginia, to begin acceptance sea trials. The carrier, also known by its hull number CVN 79, made its maiden voyage in January, and the Navy hopes to take formal delivery of the ship before the end of the year.

The Mk 95 traces back to the 1970s and was originally designed to support the employment of surface-launched RIM-7 variants of the Sparrow missile. All versions of the RIM-7 use semi-active radar guidance, which requires the launch platform to ‘illuminate’ the target.

As an example of the mode of operation for the RIM-7, if a ship were to detect an incoming cruise missile or some other kind of aerial threat, it would cue the missile in the right direction, fire it, and then use illuminators like the Mk 95 to ‘paint’ the target in radar energy. The missile’s seeker would then passively home in on the reflected radar energy through the terminal phase of flight.

When it was first introduced, the Mk 95 was part of a larger fire control suite that also brought an important new level of automation compared to previously available capabilities. Some earlier illuminators on Navy ships even had to be manually operated by sailors on deck.

Today, Mk 95s are found on a variety of U.S. and foreign naval vessels, including the Navy’s Nimitz class carriers. Some versions of the illuminators have camera systems to further help spot and track incoming threats, which have also been upgraded over the years. Improvements in associated combat systems also mean they have become better able to manage available illuminators to allow for as many engagements simultaneously as possible.

The RIM-7 family has since been supplanted in U.S. Navy service with the improved RIM-162 ESSM. Block 1 variants of the ESSM also use semi-active radar guidance and have the same general mode of operation as their predecessors. New Block 2 versions, which began entering service in the early 2020s, have semi-active and active modes, the latter of which does not require any illumination in the terminal phase. In addition, the new missiles feature a data link, allowing them to receive targeting updates after launch, helping cue them to the target area, which further reduces the need for an illuminator in the initial phases of flight. It is also very valuable for longer-range engagements beyond the horizon, especially against low-flying cruise missiles.

At present, the defensive armament suite on Ford class aircraft carriers includes two 21-round launchers for RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM), three Mk 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS) armed with 20mm Vulcan cannons, four 25mm cannons on Mk 38 mounts, and various small arms. There are also two eight-cell Mk 29 launchers, a design that also dates back to the 1970s and was originally designed to fire RIM-7 Sparrows. The Mk 29 has since been adapted to fire Block 1 ESSMs, but there were issues in integrating Block 2 versions owing to the increased weight of those missiles, at least in the past.

“CVN 79 and follow-on Ford class ships will be upgraded to a mix of new RAM variants Block 2A and 2B, plus a mix of ESSM Block 1 and Block 2,” according to an annual report from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) covering work on the program during the 2025 Fiscal Year.

The Navy’s most recent annual budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026 does note work to modify the Mk 29 launchers to support Block 2 ESSM capability, but the current state of those efforts is unclear. The service is also pursuing an entirely new launcher to replace the aging and increasingly unsupportable Mk 29, as well as a follow-on to the Block 2 ESSM.

Mk-29 Sea Sparrow Missile Launcher – RIM-162 ESSM & RIM-7P During Sea Trials

Even with integration of the Block 2 ESSM, Ford class carriers will still have to provide ‘illumination’ in order to employ Block 1 versions of the missile, which remain in active Navy inventory. As noted, Block 2 variants can be employed in a semi-active radar homing mode, as well.

This all brings us to the matter of the DBR, which was intended to be the main radar on all members of the Ford class. The DBR consists of two distinct radar systems, the AN/SPY-3, an X-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) type, and the AN/SPY-4, an S-band phased array. On paper, this was set to be a powerful combination. In a defensive scenario, the SPY-3 would be used for horizon search, generating high-fidelity target tracks, and otherwise helping direct interceptors like the ESSM to their targets. The volume search SPY-4 would provide additional long-range search and tracking functionality. Being able to fuse all that data for the dual arrays together, while also leveraging the specific capabilities of the quick-scanning AESA SPY-3, would only offer even greater benefits.

As part of the original Ford design, DBR also serves as host of other functions, including helping to provide air traffic control in support of flight operations. This also allowed the Navy to pare down the total number of distinct radars on the ship compared to the Nimitz class. This, in turn, directly factored into the design of a smaller and more angular flight deck island on the Ford class. Just this week, TWZ published a separate detailed piece on the island, and the reasons for its location so far back on the flight deck. This followed reports this past weekend that President Donald Trump is pushing the Navy to reposition the structure on future ships in this class on aesthetic grounds.

Despite the promised benefits, and its deep integration into the Ford class design, the DBR has proved to be extremely complicated and unreliable.

“Here’s the one thing that I think I screwed up. I think I’m responsible for at least a billion-dollar cost of overrun because I wanted to reduce the number of radars,” retired Navy Capt. Tal Manvel, who served for a time as Program Manager for Future Carriers, said during a presentation at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in 2015. “I did not appreciate that the complexity of that is not just increasing scale like with a mechanical system, like in the propulsion plant, but the complexity of the software-hardware interface.

“That’s my fault. I screwed up on that because I thought that this would be significant,” Manvel continued. “It turns out to be a big cost driver up front, and that’s one of the reasons why the Ford has this challenge of cost.”

You can watch Tal Manvel’s full 2015 presentation below.

Shifley Lecture: USS Ford-class carrier design

The Navy has since made the decision to replace the DBR on Ford class carriers primarily with the AN/SPY-6(V)3, also known as the fixed-face version of Raytheon’s Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR). The AN/SPY-6(V)3 has three antenna arrays compared to the DBR’s six. John F. Kennedy and future ships in the class will also feature an AN/SPQ-9B horizon search radar and the Mk 9 Tracker Illuminator System – which includes the Mk 95 illuminators – to provide additional functionality that was originally supposed to come from the DBR.

As an aside, the DBR was originally a core component of the Zumwalt class stealthy destroyer design, and was to be deeply integrated with the ship’s unique combat system, but suffered from similar technical and reliability issues in that setting, as well. The Navy subsequently decided to eliminate the S-band arrays on those ships as a cost-cutting measure. As it stands now, the USS Gerald R. Ford is the only ship the service expects to operate with the full DBR. The Navy has plans to eventually replace the DBR on that carrier with the EASR and other radars, too. Several variants of the AN/SPY-6 are also increasingly being integrated onto a host of different Navy ships, as seen in the graphic below.

The need for the Mk 95 illuminators on the Ford class could evolve further over time, including as the Block 2 ESSM enters more widespread service and with the development of the planned follow-on missile. TWZ has previously noted that the total number of Mk 95s has been reduced on at least some Nimitz class carriers for reasons that are still not entirely clear.

John F. Kennedy is also expected to bring along other important, but less visible improvements, which are set to be carried over to future ships in the class. This includes upgrades to the ship’s combat management system and a Block II version of the Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) networked sensor architecture.

The Ford class program, overall, continues to face major delays and cost growth due to a host of technical issues and other factors that go well beyond problems with the DBR. The Navy had originally hoped to receive John F. Kennedy in 2022. Work on the next two ships in the class, the future USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller, is also running behind schedule.

The Navy has said it is working to mitigate these ongoing issues and incorporate lessons learned in the construction of future ships in the class. The USS Gerald R. Ford has also now supported real combat operations, mostly recently as part of the conflict with Iran.

As highlighted in John F. Kennedy‘s recent sea trials, the Ford class design is already evolving in notable ways, particularly when it comes to the radar suite.

Special thanks to user @lfx160219 on X for bringing the Mk 95 radar illuminators on the future John F. Kennedy to our attention.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com