OT - Steam catapult conversion.

Carrier-Based Launch of Aircraft to Use Power Electronics | Power Electronics

Supposed to impart far less stress to aircraft giving up to 1/3 longer life to Navy planes.

Now for the Trump factor.
Donald Trump's Problem With the Navy's Electromagnetic Airplane Catapult, Explained

It's basically a rail gun system.

It's also just more spending for the US government to be the world police force.

digger doug said:

It's also just more spending for the US government to be the world police force.

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I would agree with that assesment.

Maybe they should at least get the rail-gun gun working properly first. Same technology just smaller, faster projectile. Great idea, pity it doesn't work any sense.

I recall electromagnetic linear acceleration munition launch systems being the coming thing back in the late 1970's when I first got involved with terminal guidance systems at (then) RARDE. Lunchtime discussions then agreed that the whole thing was pretty much impractical. It was a relatively trivial matter for our team to run the numbers and pin-point the choke points that had to be cleared in practice. Fairly obvious then that you couldn't get the thing into a reasonable length without asking too much of physics, let alone engineering.

When I got a super sweet redundancy deal back in 2004 it was still the coming thing with a nice backlog of essentially fraudulent projects behind it. Brit Aerospace, BAE Systems, Lockheed, Grumman, Martin and all the rest just love these "Sound wonderful but just a bit out of possible projects." Ten years at a time on cost plus funding is wonderful. Especially as the Civil Service side management will have changed twice in that time so no-one is gonna catch the lies, sorry over-optimistic predictions.

There is an art to these things. I swear all the big defence contractors have whole departments devoted to getting such proposals right.

Although I thought the multinational one I got sat on for a couple of years was bit blatant in using range squared for an active radar system signal loss instead of range to the power of four. Then Boss and I got kicked off that one for the second time after pointing that out. Course it didn't help that I'd re-jigged my bit to come in on time and under budget. My replacement soon pulled it back into line at 2 years late and 20% over. First kit off was when our whole team demonstrated that our bit would work, properly, despite having the target jacked up four times into alleged physical impossibility!

Silver lining being no more project management track jobs. Yay, happy dance'n booty shake.

Producing something that will work so les mandarins have to make a decision frightens the life out of them. But hey the final time got me 6 years salary as a pay off and 3 year consultancy contract at double my money so ....

Clive

Yes Clive, I experienced the attitude, fortunately for not too long. There we were watching the computer generated flight path of an airborne ship to ship missile. Soon after launch it dips about 300 feet under water, continues this way for a while, then pops up above water and hits the target. I make a comment that if we could really make it work that way we would have a world-beater (sarcasm on). The company filed it as a success since the missile hit the target.

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Clive603 said:

you couldn't get the thing into a reasonable length without asking too much of physics, let alone engineering.

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Yah thats your problem, some point some one will remember people have been using electrickery to make shit go around in circles really fast by going around in circles you can just dump more and more energy into it till you can't contain it any more! all you have to do is release it at the right point and you can really reduce the required track length when you have a projectile with a decent bit of its energy already in it. Add in some low temp super conductors and what was impossible back in the zinc carbon - Morse code era suddenly becomes a we tad more viable, yeah there is a few challenges to resolve, but its not as impossible as the current build it bigger plan of fusion (we all know at solar masses that works right??). All the more so if you reduce the projectile mass down from the current bloody great things there trying to lob and stop trying to make it look like a frigging artillery piece off the cover of a sci fi mag.

Heres hopeing a friendly force perfects it before a less friendly one, because the magazine depth and rates of fire - shear projectile velocities is going to make it about the only viable threat - means of destroying incoming hypersonic "objects" The shear energy potential in them would mean just a few of such launching critters should be able to make a real iron dome over our little island extending for several hundred miles in all directions, add in some good incoming radar - target acquisition and some simple - not so simple ballistic calculations and hay presto we don't have to give a shit about anyone ever again turning nasty. Equally if we can make a solid enough - high enough reliable iron dome we don't have to follow the cowboys on there world policing crusade which just seams to leave ever more of our forces dead and injured.

All of the above should then leave more time for the finer things in life like cucumber sandwiches, high tea and especially warm beer :-)

This is nothing new....I can recall it being looked at for at least 15 years. The article gives all the reasons it makes sense (over steam systems). Plus, I think the humans in the California/San Diego area were complaining about the oil that dumped into the ocean each time they fired a steam catapult during practice.

Technically, this is an interesting topic and represents the inevitable, and good, advancement of how ships are built. Anyone who thinks steam is better I assume still refuses to use a cell phone or drive a car with electronic fuel injection and only plays 78 RPM records.

Is it a good way to spend money? Overall, yes. It will employ Americans - at least 5 Americans I bet - which is far better than all the free hand-outs we currently give.

Its not a case that steam does not have issues, you gotta understand magnetism as a force is only so strong, hence you can only put so much power into it - develop a maximum rate of push for a given iron mass of carriage (google magnetic saturation)

If oil into ocean is your issue, something biodegradable - some oil traps seams a far far cheaper design solution!

Magnetism is an incredibly strong force. And way cleaner, quieter, and safer than steam. And infinitely more controllable.

GregSY said:

Magnetism is an incredibly strong force. And way cleaner, quieter, and safer than steam. And infinitely more controllable.

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So you know how the steam catapult works ?

I doo...My friend worked on it, and 'splained it.
It takes advantage of some neat-o steam engineering laws,
and is able to be "dialed up or down" as the need arises.
It's not just a tank of steam.

Simple and it works...much like a Detroit....kick it in the ass and
it goes.

Isn't going to give any one on the deck Luekemia either.

And it's already been paid for.

Works after an EMP pulse too.....

EDIT: and with all the "New Navy" some piercings could prove
to be hazardous....

digger doug said:

Works after an EMP pulse too.....

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Doug -

Now what did you go and bring that up for? Next thing someone will talk about how weak GPS is as a signal and a down that rabbit hole we will go......

Good concept and advantages. Wish the Naval aviator I used to work with was still around - she did a tour as a 'shooter' on a carrier and I'm sure would have some interesting opinions on it. Trouble is I'm a mechanical engineer and love steam who had to become a digital guy in aerospace - while sidelining as a grunt. So I'm used to being devils advocate no matter what military system we're arguing about.

Dale

Keep spending money with no end....I suspect Trump is gathering
money for the new "Spaceballs Force".
Spaceballs - They've gone into plaid - YouTube

I've heard from former servicemen of the "spend it or lose it" mentality.
it's a crime, when we have poverty and crime on our streets.

digger doug said:

Keep spending money with no end....I suspect Trump is gathering
money for the new "Spaceballs Force".
Spaceballs - They've gone into plaid - YouTube

I've heard from former servicemen of the "spend it or lose it" mentality.
it's a crime, when we have poverty and crime on our streets.

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Spend it or lose it is not just a military thing, it is seen in both private and governmental bureaucracys. Anywhere it is easier to spend someone else's money than look into where the money is going.

It's a crime that we have crime and poverty on our streets when most of it can be traced to freeloading. I'd much rather spend money on useless junk than hand it out to druggies and losers.

I'm not gonna repeat the article...but if you read the article that was linked above it pretty much explains why steam is inferior. Hard facts.

This discussion reminds me of procurement problems for the Warthog, it's been said that Pentagon people liked high tech, and the A-10 was low tech.
Sure ripped the guts out of a lot of enemy armor in some recent fights, for a low comparative price compared to what the top brass thought was needed.

adama said:

All of the above should then leave more time for the finer things in life like cucumber sandwiches, high tea and especially warm beer :-)

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And then... you have spent a great deal of money, and gotten a sense of security that may be misplaced. Here's a good read on that. Keep in mind, the protagonist wasn't "one of them". He had a specific target and motivation. What he did was not only technically plausible, it was rather mild and - to some of us - even "low tech" at that:

The Chinaman (Stephen Leather novel) - Wikipedia

The good points may come with some bad points.... Power electronics is good stuff, when done right. And when you have spares on hand. Design it modular, easy maintenance, and it can be a winner.

A screwed up steam catapult could be a bitch to repair. If designed wrong, a screwed up electric one could be even worse. If designed right, it could be easy to maintain. Any guesses on which way it goes?

BTW, NOT a rail gun. It is stated to be a linear induction motor, a different animal entirely, much more controllable.

We had a client who wanted the same thing,.... they wanted to launch roller coasters with it. Totally do-able, somewhat complex, required some big energy storage, since the peak power levels are large. We turned them down, but that was because we were not sure about the client, and the liability on roller coasters is ridiculous.

digger doug said:

Keep spending money with no end....I suspect Trump is gathering
money for the new "Spaceballs Force".
Spaceballs - They've gone into plaid - YouTube

I've heard from former servicemen of the "spend it or lose it" mentality.
it's a crime, when we have poverty and crime on our streets.

Click to expand...

I just have to throw this in.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sen8Tn8CBA4https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sen8Tn8CBA4

Yes, steam catapults work well. We understand them well. We can maintain them well and they don't cause cancer. However, they are expensive to maintain in both people and money and the system is large physically and heavy. Magnetic catapults offer a potential alternative that could be infinitely better in all respects, but we are not there yet. Magnetism is not well understood, even after all these years of human development and use, but it is an extremely powerful force if it can be adequately controlled and there is the current rub. So, in a nut shell, steam is the baseline and magnetism is the future. I suspect we will know a lot more if the "Parker" mission launched yesterday is successful.