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Trump Tells U.S. Navy to Go Back to Steam Catapults

serf
Another modern day military improvement that has failed reliability tests, I wonder if The US Navy is just pushing the envelope too fast with R&D again.

serf

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a27632779/trump-navy-steam-catapults/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_pop&utm_medium=email&date=060119&src=nl&utm_campaign=17071989

Unfortunately, EMALS has run into serious developmental issues that weren?t worked out before the system went from land-based trials to installation on the new USS Gerald R. Ford. EMALS, along with several other advanced technologies, delayed the introduction of Ford to the fleet by approximately three years.
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Comments

13 comments

Date Votes
  • us55840
    Steam works great.

    How many millions have been wasted attempting to use electric before the bugs were worked out?

    Gov't should award contracts only AFTER it's proven to function correctly. ;)
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  • remingtonoaks
    Quick&Dead wrote:

    Gov't should award contracts only AFTER it's proven to function correctly. ;)

    Yes, that way it can be put out for the highest bid and if we're lucky to be invited to the auction we might get it... and if not the highest bidder use it on us...
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  • spasmcreek
    bet billions $$$$ could be saved on govt military contracts that are NOT open ended add on
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  • kimi
    The scum sucking anti-traditional democrats are really ticked that the USS John McCain crew was in port and not invited!!! Just think how ticked they would get if they knew that the USS Chancellorsville and its crew were homeported in Yokosuka!!!!! :lol:
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  • Rocky Raab
    I'd hate to be a director at the stockholders meeting for a company that proposes spending a bazillion dollars to perfect a technology that the government hasn't said it wants yet. There'd be a tree and a noose involved right afterward.

    Not give a contract until it's been proven, my aching butt!
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  • KenK/84Bravo
    "Common Sense," prevails.


    Spending Billions in order to solve a problem that does not exist?


    Priceless.
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  • wpageabc
    Thank goodness a business man is running the country...

    Bureaucrats are clueless.
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  • serf
    wpageabc wrote:
    Thank goodness a business man is running the country...

    Bureaucrats are clueless.

    Yeah that Osprey plane/helicopter was a doozie for The Marine corps also but America can afford all this sophisticated weaponry anymore if they have to work out all the bugs with lives and more money.

    serf

    http://fortune.com/2017/08/05/v22-osprey-crash-australia/

    This morning?s crash of an MV-22 Osprey off the coast of Australia marks the latest in a decades-long string of serious mishaps with the versatile aircraft. While originally intended to provide a unique mix of agility, speed, and range, the tilt-rotor aircraft has been persistently criticized as wildly expensive, ineffective, and unsafe.

    The V-22, developed by Bell Helicopter and Boeing?s helicopter unit, is primarily designed to ferry ground troops into combat. Its distinctive tilting rotors let it take off vertically like a helicopter, then transition to a faster horizontal fixed-wing mode.

    But developing that concept to its fullest has proven extremely costly, and according to critics, the promise was never truly fulfilled. The project?s cost ballooned from a $68.7 million design contract in 1983 (the aircraft?s maiden flight took place in 1989) to $29.1 billion for research and procurement by 2009, when the estimated average cost per vehicle was $83.7 million. By 2012, some estimates put the total cost at $56 billion and the cost per unit at $100 million.
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  • Don McManus
    If every time we ran into a problem in the development of a better system, some ignoramous pulled the plug, we would still be flying Mustangs.
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  • wpageabc
    Ask the familys of the 2 boeing jets that crashed recently if they believe that the Boeing commercial jets were not rolled out too soon.

    Until the bugs are worked out of these very expensive systems. They should be held back. Navy will eventually get the new magnetic catapult lauch system for carriers. Currently, the project is a mess.

    In the private sector when something does not work or is too expensive it goes the way of the wind. This may be a signal of things changing for the benefit of tax payers.
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  • Don McManus
    Working out the final bugs in the electro-magnetic launch systems has to be done on a carrier at sea.

    One can simulate the dynamic nature of a flexing and rolling carrier in a virtual world only to an extent. EM launch is a fairly mature technology in the amusement park arena, and will be a huge cost savings when fully implemented in the fleet. Carrier trials are the only way to 100% test and verify the system.

    It will happen and it should happen. Pulling back absent some obvious fatal flaw (something that does not exist at this point) will only delay what is the correct path forward.
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  • us55840
    KenK/84Bravo wrote:
    "Common Sense," prevails.


    Spending Billions in order to solve a problem that does not exist?


    Priceless.

    Much like the millions of tax dollars the US government spent to 'invent' a pen that would write in space where there is no gravity.

    The Russians simply used a pencil.


    The above is not exactly true.......here is the TRUE STORY.

    Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but those writing instruments were not ideal: pencil tips can flake and break off, and having such objects floating around space capsules in near-zero gravity posed a potential harm to astronauts and equipment. (As well, after the fatal Apollo 1 fire in 1967, NASA was anxious to avoid having astronauts carry flammable objects such as pencils onboard with them.)

    When the solution of providing astronauts with a ballpoint pen that would work under weightless conditions and extreme temperatures came about, though, it wasn?t because NASA had thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars (inflated to $12 billion in the latest iterations of this tale) in research and development money at the problem. The ?space pen? that has since become famous through its use by astronauts was developed independently by Paul C. Fisher of the Fisher Pen Co., who spent his own money on the project and, once he perfected his AG-7 ?Anti-Gravity? Space Pen, offered it to NASA. After that agency tested and approved the pen?s suitability for use in space flights, they purchased a number of the instruments from Fisher for a modest price.

    'enough said. :D
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  • penguin
    The scum sucking anti-traditional democrats





    I am glad this group are all adults and do not act like children.
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