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.
He’s got a pool company that can do it?
and if they mess up your lawn just call the four seasons
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.
His cabinet wouldn’t have their cushy jobs if it wasn’t for that dotard.
They’re not gonna kill the goose that lays their golden eggs.
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.
The man really does not understand that electricity is the purest and highest form of energy there is.
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.
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.
Which one of his friends sells steam systems?
his friends
You must be the type that truly believes the stripper loves you
tbf its a common shortform of business friends which also has nothing to do with friendship
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.
But her EMALS
(sorry, I actually enjoyed your contribution though)
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.
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
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!”
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.
It’s been over 100 years since the last wooden battalion was sunk! That obviously means they are superior than metal ships
EMALS has been around for over 15 years so naturally trump lost interest
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The world will yield to US might when these are installed.
Trump is putting out Aladeen vibes…
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
This motherfucker has no clue
how magnets work.I’m vaguely recalling a press conference where Trump suggested that magnets can be deactivated by putting it water.
Is anyone else remembering this?
I remember him not knowing what they are, so one of those Trumps must be lying!
EM launchers do pose some issues to aircraft electronics that require a lot of redesign for shielding.
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.
Have they finished turning the California water faucet 37 degrees towards Canada yet? Or reopening Alcatraz? How many of these crackhead ideas go anywhere?
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.
These sound a little more like “friend’s stoner older brother that lives in his buddy’s garage” ideas to me!
