The Ship Model Forum

While this is all true, Timmy, they need to do a whole lot more than just "they performed a successful launch of and F/A-18 launch". They need to do 1000 launches before they even consider putting it on a ship. There is an amazing difference between perception and performance. There is a perception from a academic view that analyzes things from a view of "well it seems like" and a practical view of "will it actually work"? The armchair admirals (or generals) who say, "well it should work" and the guys like me who say, "it had better work" have different view points.

The bullets are aimed at me.

If it does not work, there will be a time where I quit contributing to this website, because I have been killed because one of these technologies has not panned out like some people want them to have been. The technology MUST to work, or else.

We cannot play around here. I understand that I only play with 5 or 6 serious contributors on this forum, and I greatly appreciate all of their responses, but it's stupid that people play around with this stuff. I am an academic and a pragmatist. You don’t get to talk to guys like me very often. I am a nuclear engineer from Texas A&M (one of only 3 nuclear certified schools), AND I am also a person who has put boot on hostile ground. I have called in 5" gunfire in a hostile area. I understand what our war requires. If this EMALs thing does not pan out, which it probably will…but still seems like its producers are skipping a LOT of steps so it might not in which case we will be up poop creek…the rest of the Navy will be caught with its pants down.

The US Navy is not operating as well as it can be. It is currently operating with as few components as possible. This is the source of my concern. If we fail to get Enterprise's replacement into the fleet before Enterprise retires, then we will be with only 7 deployable CVNs, and that is 3 short of what we need to defend our country.

Let me tell you: It's a hard reality to face when you are actually performing the task.

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Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

@Dave: So you don't think they will run through the 1000 launches necessary for the EMALS to be qualified before putting it on board the Ford? What makes you think that? What is your justification for saying "its producers are skipping a LOT of steps"? Maybe you have access to the inner going-ons that you can't tell me, which would be understandable.

@Bob: It'll be a beautiful world wherein we can test things for years and years before committing them to an operational environment. In this case, it would've meant/mean one of the following:
1. EMALS being conceived several years before it actually was.
2. Continue construction of Nimitzes into basically 2020 and thus not be able to operate UAVs.
3. Build the Fords with steam cats and thus make them unable to operate UAVs between now and EMALS' implementation.

Seeing as UAVs seem to be gathering such popularity (I have no opinion on them), it would explain why 2 and 3 aren't options. 1 would historically be impossible - ideas don't just come into peoples' heads out of a random point in time.

Question: Would it give you guys confidence if the EMALS does gets its 1000 or 10000 land launches? Keep in mind that in the end, SOME carrier has to be the guinea pig with NO prior ship-EMALS integration experience.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

I wonder how many steam cat shots were made before it was incorporated into a carrier? I understand your point, but I also think the Ford isn't quite the same as our other CVN's. She's more akin to Langley in the experimental nature... but even Langley was expected to be "battle ready" for a time...

It really doesn't matter anyway about the 1/9th of our Naval power projection.. we haven't the money to pay for all of it anymore anyway.... we have a choice: vote for goodies or for independence, and I think the route that the West is taking ought to be obvious.

Well, I may be off base here about the history of the naval catapult so feel free to correct me if I am, but cats were installed on many ships in the form of seaplane launchers before cat-equipped carriers ever appeared. So, lots and lots of cat launches were made. Even when the "modern" catapult was installed in WWII carriers it was done as an addition to the existing technique of "flying off" so that there was zero chance of negatively impacting the carrier performance. And indeed, cats were only slowly accepted for routine usage. The carrier catapult, thus, was gradually introduced over a period of several years to a couple of decades (depending on your definition of when cats were introduced) and the WWII carrier cat was very much an evolutionary development with lots of operational history rather than a technology "leap".

Now, your point about the Ford being analogous to the Langley is interesting. The difference being that Langley was never conceived to be a front line battle platform which the Ford is expected to be from day one. I wonder if the Navy considers the Ford to be experimental? I haven't heard it described as such but who knows what the Navy's internal thinking is?

I don't know about a beautiful world but it would be a common sense world where we test to the extent required to have a reasonable expectation of success before committing to basing an entire carrier on it. This is all the more important given that there's no backup; if the cats don't work, the carrier doesn't launch anything. By contrast, the steam cats that were introduced in the WWII carriers were, initially, just an add-on that could be used and experimented with at zero risk to the carriers performance since the normal "fly off" was always available.

I'm not suggesting that we test for a hundred years to the nth degree. Only that we test to the point of confidence, especially given that the consequence of failure is so great (a carrier that sits pierside for a couple of years while we try to backfit steam cats or while we try to work out developmental problems with the EMALS).

Was there a reasonable alternative in this situation? Yes, the Ford could have been designed with three steam cats and one EMALS so that experience could have been gained while ensuring that the carrier retained at least some functionality no matter what. If that proved out over a few years, then the next carrier could have been designed as the all-up EMALS platform and the Ford could have been retrofitted (allowance for that could have been designed in, as well).

I'm not sure why the CNO doesn't consult me on these things ahead of time but I get surprisingly few calls from him. Is it possible he doesn't read this forum???!

Well that would explain the CVN Naming convention then... WHY is this carrier NOT being named Lex, Sara, Connie, etc...?!

Yeah, I know history doesn't vote.....

Timmy, tell me about the UAV issue. I don't know anything about it as it relates to carriers. Which UAV's are you thinking of and why would they be unable to operate from steam cats? Is it a case of steam cats being unable to ratchet down the force enough to launch without damage? Have there been discussions relating to carriers and UAV's that you could point me to?

Is there a specific UAV that is supposed to be mated to the Ford and its EMALS?

Thanks,
Bob

Yes! I'm an engineer by trade so I know something (quite a bit, actually) about the type of testing we're discussing. Land tests of the EMALS will provide the operational experience and uncover the problems that are inherent in any new equipment. The first test proved the concept. The 10,000th will prove the materials of construction: where are the failure points where vibration and chronic flexing will cause cracks and breaks? where are two pieces rubbing together and causing friction failure? where will thermal expansion/contraction warping cause an unacceptable linear alignment over time? what is the effect of dirt, oil, and salt (I hope someone is throwing a bucket of saltwater over the test unit with great regularity!) on performance and corrosion? and so on...

These kinds of issues are common (inevitable, actually) with new equipment but can be debugged and corrected far more easily at a land test site than on an operational carrier that's supposed to be combat ready at all times. So, yes, I'd feel far better about installing EMALS after 1000 or 10,000 shots than after one.

Would it have been so bad to build one more Nimitz and postpone the introduction of EMALS by a couple of years while the test unit underwent extensive testing and correction at a fully instrumented and equipped test site?

The great lesson of the LCS program is that you can't build a ship and develop new technology concurrently and have any reasonable chance of success. The Navy, however, seems bent on doing just that. So far, the results speak for themselves.

Just some thoughts for what they're worth.

Regards,
Bob

I'm only quoting what the article said. I imagine it would have something to do with the time it takes to readjust the steam setting necessary for launching UAVs, in addition to, and probably more important, being more precise - you can control electric currents to a much finer degree than steam. Have also read repeated references to the stress that steam cats place on airframes due to its less controllable nature.

It is difficult to find articles on the subject - asides from the Popsci posted above (wouldn't it be great if they gave footnotes?), there's a sentence in this that reflects the precision nature of EMALS:
http://defensetech.org/2007/04/05/emals ... -catapult/

There's also a paragraph under "Launch systems" on Wiki's page for the Ford that states steam cats' minimum weight limit is above the weight of current UAVs, though provides no source for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gerald_R._Ford_(CVN-78)

I imagine a serious public-access study on UAV-EMALS integration is not yet available.


And you are right - it would be safer to build one more Nimitz. Yet, I wonder how the whole schedule thing actually played out - maybe EMALS was supposed to have been readied a year ago (I read that it suffered a 15-month delay a few years ago), and thus have another year's safety room for testing. It might also be the case that the Navy was afraid the Ford class would be cancelled in its entirety if it didn't stress the initiation of its construction now, due to political/economic reasons.

As to the failure of LCS and concurrent new technology development, I am skeptical of the view that there is something fundamentally impossible about developing a ship and its new technology side-by-side. Just because it failed for LCS does not necessarily mean (though perhaps point and wriggle eyebrows suggestively towards) failure in future programs. And truly, was not the Nautilus and its nuclear plant developed concurrently with success?

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De quoi s'agit-il?

After a lifetime of engineering development, I've seen many dozens of major projects and not one ever came remotely close to its targetted completion date! It's just the nature of new technology that there's always unforeseen problems that delay the implementation significantly. That's the fundamental impossibility. So, the issue with concurrent ship/technology development is that the two (the ship and the new technology(s)) will not be ready at the same time. Now, if we can afford to park the ship for a few years after it's completed while we wait for the technology to become ready, then fine, but trying to build front line ships (LCS, Ford, San Antonio, etc.) and expecting to have the new technology ready at the same time is hoping for something that has no historical precedence. Remember the definition of insanity?: performing the same action and expecting a different result. Building new ships and expecting new technology to be ready on time is insanity. It hasn't happened yet so it would be insane to expect that it will work the next time.

I'm not trying to criticize you, Timmy. I'm just pointing out what engineers know with 100% certainty: no new technology project will be completed anywhere near on time.

Regards,
Bob

I may well be wrong, here, but my vague recollection is that the Navy operated full scale nuclear plants on land for some time prior to Nautilus so, no, they were not developed concurrently.

You are correct, sir. While Timmy brings up a good thought point, it's not true about the reactor. That type of reactor had been operating on land before it was put in the sub.

But regardless, it's still a bad idea to rely on "on time delivery" technological revolutions with a ship whose delivery is timed so on edge with the basic defense requirements of the US. Roughead has timed the early decommissioning of the Enterprise with the commissioning of the Ford on such a razor thin time frame that we can "afford" to drop to 10 carriers, because it happens to land on a window where we have enough carriers available for minimum surge deployment requirements. However, that window is very small, and if Ford is not delivered on time and depending on Lincoln's fate, we will drop to 8 or 9 carriers. Despite what some second-guessers might want to question, that is not acceptable. If we had more carriers, this would not normally be a problem, but we are not skating the requirements for doing everything we want to do like conduct competitive operations...to make presence where we need to...to operate with and defend our allies, etc. We are actually skating the minimum requirements for defending the country. There needs to be no delay in the delivery of the Ford. This is where the problem is with on-time delivery with un-proven, revolutionary technology as EM catapults.

We need to reactivate and modernize 2 battleships, because as the GAO and the Navy has stated, we need to have 10 carriers (ships capable of delivering carrier-level strikes) to defend the country and 12 to support our allies, before this becomes a problem

_________________
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

From the comments and rantings about the development of EMLS for the Ford-class CVN's, one would think that the concept of using linear motors driving a catapult shuttle instead of a belch of steam is such an revolutionary one. However, electromagnetic propulsion is not a new idea. Linear motors have driven some of the roller coasters in theme parks or the high-speed meglev trains, for the past 20-25 years or thereabouts. An aircraft-launching system should be a piece of cake for the EM engineer/designer. The specific advantage of EMLS over the current C-11 steam catapult would be the precise computer controls used to control the initial launch force and acceleration of the catapult shuttle to suit any particular aircraft or vehicle being launched. The steam catapult can not be so flexible.

Finally, remember that it took only 4 years for Colin Mitchell to develop the steam catapult from a powder-based system to the launching of a S2F Tracker off the USS Hancock in 1954. The time line looks good for adopting EMLS and getting it operational by 2015.

GR

No one is arguing that EMALS is a bad idea. It's a great idea with lots of upside. The argument is over the wisdom of betting an entire carrier on it being ready in time. That's a big risk for a country that is already in the hole on carriers.

Just because it's not a new idea doesn't mean that it can be easily implemented. If that were the only criteria, we'd already have laser CIWS on all our ships because, heck, that idea's been around forever.

Moving a roller coaster is a world away from moving a jet plane.

This may all pan out but it was a foolish risk to take. We'll see what happens.

That about sums it up I think...

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Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Regrettably, there is very little one can do about the shortage of carriers in the US Fleet. In the 1960's, as a civilian scientist loaned to the Navy, I participated in the research studies and argued for a nuclear-powered USS America and a USS John F. Kennedy. The additional years of life contributed by these 2 ships would have mitigated today's carrier shortage. (USS America was supposed to have been the hedge in the event that USS Enterprise was a failure.)

But one has to accept and meet the challenge of the future. Am I also writing here that those of us who had the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of technology in the 1960's were better scientists and engineers than those graduating from colleges and universities today? Heavens forbid. If this were to be the case, then I can understand the pessimism and unwillingness to tolerate risk.

I think there is less risk of failure in successfully mating EMALS to the USS Gerald R. Ford in time than that of failing the mission that the late President John F. Kennedy presented to the United States in 1960. EMALS is not new science and engineering; going to the moon was. Besides, failure is not going to be option for the carrier force should it become incapable of operating the airframes being considered for the future.

(And, BTW, the laser CIWS would have required a fleet of all nuclear-powered ships due to the energy needed to power it and the scale of economies involved. This would have eventually lead to the particle beam laser as a weapon of the future. Life is a bunch of trade-offs.

GR

Well, it seems that we are engineers here, just ones with varying levels of experience. The risk of what will happen if she is delayed by years is too great to accept without reactivation of other capital ships.

People are concerned about the Ford's unproven technology because of what has happened with the other ships bearing unproven technology in recent years: the whole San Antonio-class sucks so badly that people have died because of its unproven design. All 31 Spruance-class ships and 5 of the Ticonderoga-class were sacrificed to fund and force development of LCS and DDG-1000, of which we are going to get maybe...7 ships, and none are going to perform like they were advertized.

Now they're doing it with an aircraft carrier whose delivery we're relying on for basic national security.

However, to mitigate the risk we can modernize two battleships in under two years and fund them for 19 years for the price of DDG-1003. No big deal. That would give us 2 flexible capital ships while we play around with maintaining the carrier fleet.

_________________
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Once the EM cat system comes to work though, it's going to be cool. Talk about reducing things that can break. Someday it is going to be a great change in technology.

Does anyone know why they went from 4 to 3 elevators for the Ford?

_________________
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

My read of EMALS is similar. It is a simpler system in accelerating the catapult shuttle down the track using EM pulses versus shoving a piston down a cylinder from an expanding belch of steam. Of course, I am presently working in an enterprise where accelerating particles down tracks, both circular and linear, is common place. The science is the same...just a lot more power needs to be generated for moving larger objects.

As for 3 elevators, it has been mentioned that operations research determined that area used for parking planes on the flight deck is more important than moving planes between it and the hanger deck. By moving the island towards the stern and enlarging the plane park forward of it, it was expressed that more efficient flight operations could be achieved.

GR

From Gannett's NavyTimes comes this update on the EMALS development.

By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 9, 2011 22:06:02 EST

The new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System under development for the Navy took a “pause” to correct problems that appeared after the first test launch in December, a top Navy official said March 9.

The Navy conducted its first test launch of the system using a real aircraft, rather than a test load, on Dec. 21 at its catapult testing facility in Lakehurst, N.J. But no further flights have been made since the successful launch of an F/A-18E Super Hornet.

The problem, said Sean Stackley, the Navy’s top acquisition official, was a “gap” between the motors as the system worked to accelerate the aircraft to launch speed.

The EMALS consists of a number of linear motors in series, Stackley explained. “In the handoff from motor to motor, as the aircraft is accelerating, there is a gap. That needs to be tuned.”

...

The EMALS program has suffered numerous delays during its development, however, and is reported to have nearly exhausted the margin of error to deliver components on time to shipbuilder Northrop Grumman Newport News so they can be installed on the carrier. Further EMALS delays, one source said, could begin to impact the carrier’s building schedule and threaten cost increases.

Looks like this is going to be a photo finish on whether it's ready in time for delivery!

Link to original article:
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/03/defense-aircraft-launch-system-coming-back-after-pause-030911/