Next Generation of Catapult
By Looks like steam catapults on aircraft carriers are finally going out of style.
The newly-named USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the first of the next generation of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and with these ships are plans for the incorporation of radical new technology.
The most basic mission of an aircraft carrier is to launch and recover . . . duh . . . aircraft. The Electro-magnetic Aircraft Launch System is being fielded to take care of what we call the “shooting off the pointy end” or launch part.
In very basic terms, the legacy steam catapult system uses energy to “push” the shuttle down the track to launch aircraft. EMALS uses magnetic fields to “pull” the shuttle to affect the same end.
Steam catapults tend to put a lot of stress on aircraft, and they’re also complicated to maintain. That’s why the Russians and Indians decided to go with a ski-jump design, and the British seem to prefer VSTOL aircraft for the CVF. It’s unclear what the two planned PLAN carriers would have, although since Varyag is ski-jump carrier, I’d bet that the new ones will be, as well.
On a related question, CVN-79 had better be the USS Bill Clinton; I can understand why Jimmy Carter got a submarine (he was a sub officer), but there’s no excuse for Ford (or George H. W. Bush, for that matter) to have a carrier in preference to Clinton.