Posted on 01/24/2020 11:57:18 PM PST by Spktyr
That seems like a huge advantage. I imagine you could really customize the acceleration profiles for the needs of various aircraft.
It’s worth pointing out that CVN-65 Enterprise didn’t have fully workable radar for most of her early and mid *career* - the SCANFAR phased array radar mounted to her was an utter disaster. It was finally replaced in the 1980s after about 20 years of only partial radar function. It didn’t seem to matter much as the carrier herself often shouldn’t be radiating other than for air traffic control - air and surface search radar duties were assigned to her battle group escorts.
The troublesome DBR radar on the Ford is the same system that was originally designed to be put on the Zumwalt destroyers, except the Zumwalts dropped the S-band part of the system due to cost reasons (and therefore may have avoided the problems). It’s not that it was something special cooked up for the carrier; the next Ford, the Kennedy, will carry the SPY-6 system intended for the new Flight III “oh crap, we can’t build new Zumwalts, we better upgrade” Burkes instead, so basically the Navy has given up on the DBR that they wanted in the first place. When the Ford will be getting the SPY-6 herself is a matter for Congress.
As for the weapon elevators (not the aircraft elevators, those work fine), it looks like the problems with those are tolerance issues (no, you can’t build a linear induction motor elevator with the tolerances of a UAW car), sealing issues (water ingress into electronics is a bad thing) and once again a software issue. Shouldn’t be that hard to fix the mechanical issues, but the software (just as with EMALS) is likely going to take some time. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/01/the-navys-new-plan-to-fix-fords-elevator-failures/
Er, “airforce”/Army Air Corps at the time, just to be 100% correct.
It's foolish to not consider manufacturing capacity of a potential adversary. Stalin wasn't wrong when he said that Quantity has a quality all its own.
#32 What the future may hold.
Superiority by Arthur C. Clarke
http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html
Well played.
I read where a German POW was being ragged about being captured. He said that he knocked out the first Sherman tank, then the second, then the third. "I was only captured because I ran out of Panzerfausts before you ran out of Shermans."
You have not had a catapult launch until you have had a hydraulic catapult launch!
Steam catapult launches are SWEEET! First one I had I thought I had a cold (i.e. low pressure) cat shot!
If EMALS is softer than steam, it may be a nice ride!
I guardamtee you that a night cat shot on a hydraulic cat is BETTER THAN an “E” ticket ride at Disneyland!
It is a “High Pucker” event that takes your breath, vision and senses away! YABBADABBADO!
And then you gotta recover and fly the damn plane!
Pretty sure hydraulic catapults were out of service long before I was of age to drive. :P
LOL!
Hydraulic cats were installed on the ASW 27 Charlie aircraft carriers.
I went to WESTPAC in USS Kearsarge (CVS-33) in 1966 and again in 1967/68.
The 27 Charlie attack boats had steam cats.
When the 27 Charlie ASW carriers were retired in the 1970s, hydraulic cats retired with them.
As I said in my earlier post, night hydraulic cat shots were exciting!
Just to put that into perspective... The Kitty Hawk’s 0-60 time for a cat shot was about .8 seconds. There are motorcycles that can duplicate that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpMV-Gf0hA
I was gonna come back in and call bullshit because the first plane to catapult steam came from the catapult track... but later launches there was no steam so its all good!!
Watch again, the steam isn’t coming off the cat but is actually water/moisture being boiled/pushed by the jet exhaust off the deck.
bttt!
My daughter is on the Reagan at present with VAW 125 Tigertails. E2D wing. so i’ve been a little attentive to whats what in the ACC world!! thanks for posting!
I was wondering about the F-35. Thanks.
5.56mm
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.