http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/trump-may-have-derailed-a-crucial-part-of-americas-futu-1795121555
It looks like after almost a decade of development, the ultra-advanced Gerald R.
Ford supercarrier will be commissioned this year. An important detail about this
ship, the first of its class, is that it does not use steam catapults to launch
planes as is traditional, but instead uses an electromagnetic system to fling
them into the air. And then President Donald Trump opened his mouth.
From a Time interview with the president that went live this morning:
You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is
they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to
Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition,
which oversees the program, to see if they knew anything about this massive new
procurement change and its implications. I have yet to hear back.
the 1950s to help them get going. You need to throw them in the air.
carriers will use EMALS, and not steam catapults. It works just fine for a lot
of the aircraft on ships now, but for the drones that will be flying in the
skies more than 50 years from now, when the Ford-class is still expected to be
in service, a new solution is needed.
heating system, steam systems in general are extremely complicated. Steam
catapults on an aircraft carrier are even more so. The inner workings are huge
control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLVQE2Ml9z8
EMALS, on the other hand, works a lot like the magnetic levitation trains you
understand it.
The system uses electric currents to charge up a carriage-and-track system, and
once full energized, the carriage (with a plane attached) is propelled at high
off the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford, as it did in testing last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrzgFpkzSlg
in military diffusion, maritime affairs, and national security at the Patterson
School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky,
and our resident carrier expert, if this was all nuts. And it turns out, maybe
not.
out the launch system in the already-built Ford, and re-designing the following
carriers (including the already-under construction USS Enterprise), would be
been beset by reliability issues over the years, and if anything, carriers need
to be reliable. Without the ability to launch planes, the ship is a proverbial
sitting duck.
But like most new things, the kinks will probably be worked out. The system is
needed for the future, and if we turned our back on every system that was
living in the stone age.
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