Trump has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too ‘complicated’
After nearly a decade of loudly complaining about the fact that modern US aircraft carriers use electromagnetic systems to launch fighter jets instead of steam-powered catapults, Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace the modern system with the old-fashioned catapults he prefers.
Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, to make the change he has had his heart set on since at least 2017, when he first described his idea to Time magazine.
The memorandum gives the Pentagon leaders 60 days to come up with “a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of” the USS Doris Miller, a Ford-class aircraft carrier, which is already two years behind schedule.
That he's never met before and never worked with
Which one of his friends sells steam systems?
tbf its a common shortform of business friends which also has nothing to do with friendship
I know, I should've used quotation marks instead.
"Friends? Have you met this guy?"
The issue between the two systems is isolation. In the old C-13 series if one track needed repair, you have to shut steam off to that track. The rest can keep going. In the EMALS there's just the one centralize power architecture, so if a track has to go down, it takes the whole thing down with it.
Few really want to return to steam. It requires a lot of the ship to house special high pressure equipment and requires more maintenance overall to keep it running. Additionally, a lot of the drones designed need the precise control that the EMALS provides to not break apart. But it's hard to point out all the various tooling that has to go on behind the scenes when one track goes down with steam, when the whole effing thing with EMALS has to go down and no launching happens for hours.
And that's ultimately what happens, the metrics that are being used are getting aircraft into the air, not overall downtime or cost to operate. And EMALS is still struggling to hit the numbers it has to hit and likely won't hit them till around 2030. Every time it goes down, every zero aircrafts it gets pulls that metric down hard.
5 stars is truly top-tier, in general
*coughs* Ok, I'm leaving
You'd think that an electric system should allow for relatively easy isolation – isolating electric circuits from each other with breakers is hardly new technology. Is this lack of isolation a design flaw of EMALS or is there an actual physical reason why it couldn't be designed with independently powerable tracks?
Looks like they've already issued a contract to fix it so it would appear it's entirely possible and someone just fucked up the requirements/design first time around.
Absolutely wild that this wasn't part of the original design. I can turn off power to my stove without shutting down my whole house, but the US Navy can't independently power launch systems.
You'd think the United States would take great care when designing their main tools for global power projection. And you'd probably be right; I can imagine that countless hours were invested into determining where the parts get built and which senators get to politically benefit from that. Technological details don't really matter; at worst you can just turn flaws into lucrative followup contracts for companies in the stock portfolios of top politicians.
Ding, ding. Yeah. Happens with Government contracts. Corners get cut. Just a symptom of ... gestures towards Washington DC
As the other person mentioned, they're looking to fix the "shortcomings" of the current system. Happens in government projects that corners get cut and that short-term "fixes" ends up having long-term "issues".
That said, dropping the whole thing to go back to steam because of corners being cut is a royally stupid idea. But I mean we are talking about a guy who decided to just level an entire wing of the White House before anything to replace it was actually thought out and approved.
I’m wondering if they mean that the points of failure are overall harder to isolate? Like, I don’t know… can the steam system work if the ship looses power? That would be a level of isolation that I imagine EMALS can’t do. But then I’d wonder, what if each track had its own generator? Oh… hey, just use steam generators. Problem solved, Trump won’t tell the difference,
US military too dumb to isolate a track electrically, checks out
It's so simple to solve though, just have the track squirt up a bit of fog machine smoke each time it runs and tell him it's steam powered again. What is he going to do, go check? Just lie, that's our culture now, just lie about it.
No they don't, there's still 4 units one per launcher. Most of problems you mention seems to come from energy storage system. Energy is stored in the flywheels, which requires annoying converter, so chinese variant uses giant set of supercapacitors instead which is just a bit heavier and has less problems with communications interference. Also can be split in many parts and fit in any space you have. Mostly benefit of being designed later. Zero surprises if americans figure it's better but institutional inertia keeps them using the old one
This motherfucker has no clue how magnets work.
The same dumb motherfucker who wanted to nuke a hurricane and also extended a hurricane path with a Sharpe because NOAA wouldn't entertain his valuable input on hurricane path.....of course a guy like that is vexed by magnets
... and he looked up at a solar eclipse without eye protection... multiple times!
And he also... shit, how long does everyone have? This list will take a fair while to get through
I'm vaguely recalling a press conference where Trump suggested that magnets can be deactivated by putting it water.
Is anyone else remembering this?
Next: why do we even need the planes; we can directly catapult stones on the enemy! Wonder why nobody ever thought about it
Just wait until he finds out about trebuchets.
Sharp sticks were part of the world's arsenal for thousands of not millions of years!
Not only part of the arsenal. In a lot of times and places throughout history, they've been your best option against most things (though generally this is only when you have the sufficient manpower to make them work; for 1v1 matchups, swords are usually better)
That takes way to much knowledge of physics for him to understand
To be fair a third of anything said to him is sycophantic praise, so why wouldnt he think he's a genius?
I'm pretty sure it's 100% at this point. I'm starting to think he's not even a liar at all and he is just insanely delusional from all the yes men
Tell him No? Is that what you think the primary issue is, here? That his governing style needs more restraint?
Well... Yeah, kinda at a base level. If the law actually did its job and told him 'no' when he wanted to avoid prison, or even told him no to a million other illegal things he did, it'd be a lot better I think
Use the electromagnetic launcher just also add a tube that shoots out a stream of hot steam as it launches a plane so his dumb ass can brag about how he built a steam launcher.
Y'know it's usually the other way around, ya know folks reinventing the train but shittier and calling it a car or bus. Weirdly refreshing. Also trackless trains have existed since the 1800s with steam tractors, there was a nuclear powered equivalent in the 50s, and I'm pretty sure I've heard of something similar being used in Iraq and Syria back in the 30s where they just hooked up multiple trailers to a pair of modified trucks to move goods to places without rail.
There are also busses that can hook up to a tram's electrical power net.
I feel like trams, trolleys, and electrified busses are in their own category seperate from trains. It's kinda like a rabbit and a hare, there's a lot of overlap but they are different.
This is a brilliant work-around. It'll save a ton of R&D money and won't take nearly the time and $ that a full retrofit would, all while pacifying the Orange Diaper Baby until the next dumbass idea comes along. How would you like a no-bid contract for the job?
Yes, after spending outrageous amounts to develop EMALS (what's basically a railgun but for launching airplanes) we can now spend even more to rip that out and design a steam system for those ships....
This moron is confounded by magnets and windmills. He is one of the dumbest (did you know there's a 'b' in dumb? Most people don't you know) people in American history.
He is a dumbass micromanager. The president shouldn't be involved at this level of technology development period.
Unless a contractor bribed him to install the steam system.
I wish it was corruption like that. I think it’s even sillier. Trump is like “Steam is what they used when I was a kid, so it must be the best, anything newer is woke”
Likely to just delay the launch of the latest carrier, this slowly weakening the military
Yeah that's a strong possibility as well. Hard to tell if it's Dunning-Kreuger, corruption, or both.
I can only imagine the hard facepalming going on in the Navy right now.
How many more before this government collapses, as it should? It's truly an emperor-no-clothes situation.
He's gotta check with the Saudis, too.
Join me in some wild speculation about this aircraft carrier which is already behind schedule:
The ship, named for Messman Second Class Doris Miller, is the first aircraft carrier named for both an enlisted sailor and an African American.[9] The ship will be the second to honor Miller, who received the Navy Cross for his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor; the first ship was USS Miller (FF-1091).[10] It is currently the only Gerald R. Ford-class carrier to be named after a person who was not a former president.
The president's changes will slow things down. Now why would he want to slow that aircraft carrier down?
“The future Trump-class battleship – the USS Defiant – will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans,” Phelan said...
“The U.S. Navy will lead the design, along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.
The inevitable lunacy of your garden variety dictator. Dictate ALL the things, my whims are more important than reality.
I can't wait until trump orders the aircraft carrier to be made capable of dive-bombing.
"Gold is the best material, all new vessels will be made out of solid gold."
"But gold is incredibly weak, malleable, heavy, expensive..."
"GOOOLLLDDD!"
And even with this, the US Navy isn't going back in time anywhere as far or as fast as the US Department Of Health which has already reached the 18th century under a leadership that denies that vaccines work.
Opie Heimer was a brilliant man, very brilliant
The world will yield to US might when these are installed.
Trump is putting out Aladeen vibes...
I can only imagine he really cares about this because he's invested in the company that makes the steam-powered systems.
That's probably all there is to it.
What we'll probably hear from him next is that he prefers steam gauges over glass cockpits and that all aircraft, civilian or military, must be retrofitted with the former. And biplanes, the Pentagon must start buying and using them. Everybody knows (except for Communists) that two wings are better than one.
I think it's more like "bring back whatever I watched on film between 1955-1990 as that's the last time the world felt familiar". Steam catapults from Top Gun, TriStar jet because triples are best, PanAm airlines because the stewardesses had miniskirts and cleavage. Fuck it, someone call Howard Hughes while we're at it
It's all fun and games until the itch.io catapults start taking over.
I wonder if it's physically possible to build a supersonic biplane...
I suppose it would be technically possible, the issue would be that the moment you start to turn the aircraft, the air turbulence generated by the upper wing would rip the lower wing off. This is a problem even at lower speeds which is why double decked wing designs stop being made.
There really were steam-powered aircraft, weirdly enough. Maybe trump thinks they never got a fair shake.
This is so obviously irrational that I'm surprised that his cabinet hasn't removed him for incompetence just for this. The man is a dotard.
What's wrong with rubber bands?
Ooooo what about steam powered AI data centers? Would that even be possible? What about my PC? Could I run Steam on steam?
You can run doom on literal potatoes so I am sure you can even run Crysis on steam
Because it’s electric?
Nevermind the electronic valves and electronic systems that control the steam, it just can’t be electric where it counts. This is the stupidest president ever.
Because it’s electric?
No, because it has magnets.
Trump is notoriously afraid of magnets. It upsets him that they would put a magnet on something that's supposed to float on the sea, and he worries about them sinking with the magnets still on them. I read through one of his rants on the topic, verbatim. The guy is stupid. Very stupid indeed. And senile.
Basic physics concepts are quite considerably beyond him. Understanding that fire is hot just about maxes out his mental capacity.
Remember when we used to laugh at George Bush, he looks like an intellectual juggernaut next to trump.
Good, less American fighters being able to be launched means a safer world
Have they finished turning the California water faucet 37 degrees towards Canada yet? Or reopening Alcatraz? How many of these crackhead ideas go anywhere?
These sound a little more like "friend's stoner older brother that lives in his buddy's garage" ideas to me!
Yeah but they’re from a pedophile who snorts adderall
Well his latest scheme appears to be to give Greenland a bunch of expensive oil drilling equipment. He genuinely seems to believe that if they just start drilling for oil no one's going to stop them.
I've met flat earthers with better critical thinking skills than this idiot.
After this and reviving the idea of battleships (which will make them again fat targets for kamikaze rubber boats), betcha the bastard will want fucking outsized wonder weapons.
And he will call them Trumpwaffe 1 through 3. None of them will have any significant impact apart from the impact on logistics and the defense industry
I really hate how Americans are screwing the world via Trump but at least he is also screwing Americans. Not quite balance but at least Americans should be feeling some of the pain that they insist on inflicting on the rest of the world.
at least he is also screwing Americans
It's almost as if he's really a tool of Putin and the Saudis and doesn't give two fucks about America.
Edit: I can't believe I forgot about Israel.
Bro most of America lives paycheck to paycheck under an inhumane capitalistic system designed to make us desperate, afraid, and without a sense of community. We are dependent upon employment to get whatever overpriced and impersonal healthcare we are allowed by our employer-provided insurance. We have no savings. We are guaranteed no time off, and we can be fired in most places at any time for any reason. Our educational infrastructure has been systematically degraded over the past few decades, as have all our consumer protections and what few tools we’ve ever had to fight these oppressive conditions. Our kids get sent to war because joining the military is about the only method the poor and undereducated have of getting a chance of going to college or securing a mortgage. The people fucking you and the rest of the world aren’t Americans, they’re our oligarchs.
montyburnsbangingfistondesk.gif
Is this because of his obsession with magnets and water?
Can the military not just lie to him and tell them they've done it it's not like he's going to check. Even if he did he wouldn't know what he was looking at because his brain, not something to write home about the best of times, has now turn to cottage cheese.
He'll be directing the military to return to wooden ships and musket next.
Put the ballista back in icbm!
On the bright side, the new carriers will probably get about a mile from shore before their hulls crack and they sink.
EMALS has been around for over 15 years so naturally trump lost interest
I think he saw a bunch of wires and concluded this much be harder to maintain than running high pressure steam pipes everywhere.
They going to battle cylons next?
"'Tree-buckets'? Ohhh you mean like when those Canucks suck off the wood to get maple syrup?" Probably something he'd say
He was visited by the ghost of Ted Stevens.
What happened to the pottypants who seemed to like magnets?
Meanwhile in China where science and innovation are at the forefront:
Steam launchers put significantly more stress on the aircraft, which means they have to be reinforced to support the poorly controlled initial spike in force.
Similar forces will need to be generated to launch a jet any way. Are you saying they launch them too hard? How much softer could you be yet get the aircraft up to speed in the same distance?
Steam has a high initial peak force of 4Gs which quickly tails off (sudden peak force/acceleration, rapid drop after that) whereas EM has a peak force of 3Gs (its acceleration curve is fairly flat). That means Steam applies 33% more force, hence needed aircraft needing reinforcement to handle.
Seems like something that could be fixed on the steam side of the equation or maybe it needs that much initial force to get up to speed. I remember the Ford was frying electronics on FA18s for a while. Maybe the steam launch is more of an issue for F35? We've been launching FA18s with steam for decades so I doubt all of a sudden it's an issue.
I did not know they used electromagnetic catapults and it somehow also does not make sense. Those carriers have a fuckton of steam left over. So instead of converting it to a battery, just to convert it back to kinetic, is not that efficient. Downside is probably increased maintenance.
Uhm. I don’t have to be an engineer to understand basic physics, which is that you never can convert energy without loss.
All I am saying is, that it is less efficient to convert the energy, when you can use the steam directly.
Probably a good idea to learn about topics before guessing, really.
Compared to steam catapults, the EMALS also weighs less, is expected to cost less and require less maintenance, and can launch both heavier and lighter aircraft than a steam piston-driven system. It also reduces the carrier's requirement of fresh water, thus reducing the demand for energy-intensive desalination.
...
The steam system is massive, inefficient (4–6% useful work), and hard to control
Ah yes, the classic “I only read half of the comment and still argue”
Why is it waste on a nuclear aircraft carrier.
There's a giant electrical generator that has steam yes, but you have way more electricity than stream, before other benifits.
The same reason why you have a big pillar of steam at nuclear power plants. You can only use a fraction of the steam and the rest just ends up in the atmosphere.
Is the steam anywhere close to the launch location though? No idea how this shit works but I assume that would need all kinds of piping and valves and in the end it'll probably less efficient than converting to electricity and using that
Fair point, the heat loss during transport should not be underestimated
....maybe steam catapults are even less efficient? Maybe they can get better accuracy with less equipment using wires instead of a massive plumbing system? Maybe it would be way more maintenance, thus negating other efficiencies? I'm sure there are a massive amount of factors. Don't you think they need to generate electricity, anyway? Maybe adding on the launch power is negligible.
They don't actually. Steam catapult is operated with completely separate steam supply, and major design goal of ford class was to remove it so even if pedo in chief wanted, retrofit is physically impossible. That separate steam supply needs extra freshwater because it's not condensed and recovered. EMALS is much milder on plane and pilot because it's a big linear motor that gives constant acceleration instead of spike then decreasing like with steam. Efficiency of steam catapult is also dogshit compared to turbine + energy storage system
Oh, good to know! Thank you for explaining!
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He’s got a pool company that can do it?
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