Posted on 06/11/2015 3:40:10 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
... The electromagnetic system will replace the steam-driven catapults that operate aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
And you’ll never believe who pioneered the technology behind the electromagnetic catapult. The answer? The Disney corporation developed it for use in indoor roller coasters. Its use eliminated the need for a “starter” hill to get the coasters going.
CC
No need for steam so need need to boil water and no need for a reactor. Start building carries with gas turbine propulsion and we could build 2 for the price of one. Or have a mix of conventional and nuclear carriers. The conventional for power projection and amphibious support, thy nuclear carriers for blue water ops.
I served aboard 3 Nimitz class carriers, Nimitz (CVN 68), Ike (CVN 69), and Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). As a nuke plant operator, I didn’t get topside much, but flight ops always fascinated me. After the Navy, I met my wife while we both worked at Newport News Shipbuilding. Sometimes we would have lunch together on the waterfront and watch catapult testing on the George Washington (CVN 73). Good times. Thanks for posting this.
Nay, nay. They wouldn’t be able to stay on station very long, and would have to carry extra fuel, some for the propulsion plant and some for the planes.
An alpha strike launched from a conventional carrier is exactly the same as from a nuclear CV.
Nuclear propulsion is an exotic and expensive play toy to best left to the bubbleheads.
You tell the Crew no Hot showers or clean dishes. Waste of fuel and time refueling. A Nuke can provide emergency power in a disaster zone easily, how much fuel would it take the other way?
Wrong, just wrong.
Thank You for Your Service.
With conventional you can afford two for the price of one. THE REST OF THE SURFACE FLEET MANAGES TO HAVE SHOWERS AND HOT WATER. Damage control on conventional ships is 1000 times less complicated than on a nuclear powered ship. There are a 100’s reason to stop this carrier nuclear myopia. The submarine fleet has a reason to go nuclear, the surface fleet does not.
What about the cost of fuel to propel a non-nuclear carrier?
Many studies have been done on the cost of nuclear vs convention carriers and it costs about half to construct/run a conventional carrier over its life time. I will not do your research for you but you can find these studies on the web.
*Your words not Mine.*
With conventional you can afford two for the price of one.
Translation= More fuel for zer0 and 1st wookie and spawns to travel around the World. It would not go towards doubling the Fleet.
Also I'm fairly sure that Conventional takes up more space on board than Nuke does.
Damage control on conventional ships is 1000 times less complicated than on a nuclear powered ship.
1000 times ? Are You sure about that ? 1000 times ?
“US nuclear-powered warships have been operating safely for more than 50 years without a reactor incident or any release of radioactivity that has had an adverse affect on human health, marine life, or the quality of the environment,” Lieutenant Sean Robertson, a Navy spokesman in Washington said.
The only other fire (damage control needed) that I found.
We have lost 1 Nuke Sub to vandalism (read terrorist) attack at the Shipyard.
The Ruskie's different story but none the less still a Nuke Sub(s) and 1 was because of a faulty Torpedo exploding inside the Sub.
Ship gas turbines come in a box. You can change them out like plug in units when/if they fail. There is no fire room(boilers/reactor) and a tiny engine room.
Its how most of the rest of the fleet operates.
I am talking about a real war, I am not sure if a torpedo slams a CVN mid ships and the reactor core is damaged nobody is going to put on proximity clothing just to fight simple flooding. IMO it is suicidal. I believe you would see sailors refusing to wade through contaminated water and steam. I can see that happening with an otherwise survivable hit.
You have none of that on a conventional ship of any size.
For a time back in the 60's and 70's Disney also had the 5th or 6th largest submarine fleet in the world. Then they did away with all the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea rides.
Seriously, one more factor in the turbine vs nuclear debate...CVNs have a estimated useful life of 50 years..with one scheduled refueling at 25 years..and the ship is out of commission for about a whole year..
Gas turbines can be swapped out really quicky. The CVN is the outlier, not the rest of the fleet.
Dave Letterman ended his show a few weeks too early...
Don't get me wrong, GTs are great for small boys, but at this point they cannot be used economically to power anything over 65,000 tons. Maybe in the future, large GTs that are made for land based power plants (like the GE 7FA, the Westinghouse 501F, or the Alstom GT24/26) could be adapted for marine use, but we are not there yet. I currently repair all three of the above configurations, so I know what I am talking about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.