Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/07/03/emals_contract_inked/
US sinks $0.5bn into electromagnetic aircraft-throwers
Great idea for new Brit carriers - if we get any
Posted in Science, 3rd July 2009 13:16 GMT
The Pentagon has awarded a half-billion-dollar contract for the building of a radical new electromagnetic catapult, intended to hurl US Navy jets off future aircraft carriers and into the sky. The new tech could also be used to hugely enhance Britain's planned new carriers - but it's becoming more and more likely that these will never be built.
The so-called Electro Magnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) is intended to replace traditional steam catapults in all future US carriers. It was announced this week that General Atomics of San Diego has been awarded "an unfinalized $573 million ceiling-priced contract" to build the first one for the next planned US fleet carrier, CVN 78 or USS Gerald R Ford.
Ordinary fixed-wing jets or turboprops need to use catapult launch to take off from a carrier, as there isn't room on the deck for them to accelerate up to flying speed (even with the ship steaming into wind as fast as possible). The steam catapult, invented in Britain, has been the standard solution ever since jets came in after World War Two.
Steam catapults, however, naturally enough require copious amounts of steam. This is normally drawn from the ship's propulsion plant, which is fine in the case of steam ships or nuclear-powered ones like modern US Navy carriers (as the reactor uses a steam-turbine system to drive the props). The Royal Navy's current pocket carriers, however, are propelled by gas-turbine engines, meaning that they have no steam or catapults. Thus they can't operate normal planes, just helicopters and jumpjets like the Harrier, able to get airborne after a very short takeoff roll and come in to land vertically*.
The American Ford and her successors will be nuclear powered and could use steam cats, but EMALS offers massive weight and maintenance savings. It will also be kinder to the airframes of the jets it throws into the sky, saving on wear and tear. Hence the US Navy are keen to get it working.
Meanwhile, the planned pair of new Queen Elizabeth class carriers for the Royal Navy are on the drawing boards in the UK. They will be gas-turbine ships so as to save money, but they'll use an electric transmission rather than a gearbox to turn their screws. Space has been allowed in their design for catapult gear, but they can't use steam cats. In theory one might fit auxiliary steam boilers purely for launching planes, but that would be nearly as pricey as a nuclear ship.
However, the Queen Elizabeth class' electric transmission would make it a relatively simple matter to fit them with EMALS purchased from the States, using electricity from the ships' engines to drive the catapults. This would at a stroke make the ships - and so the British fleet - hugely more powerful. At the moment the only jets able to fly from them will be the F-35B supersonic stealth jumpjet set to replace the Harrier. But the F-35C - the catapult/arrester-hook version - not needing the B variant's lift fan and swivelling tailpipe, offers significantly better performance.
Better still, catapults and arrester hooks would let the RN operate a wide range of other planes. Hawkeye carrier AWACS aircraft, as used by France and America, would be able to sweep the sea and sky for hundreds of miles - allowing patrolling jets to eliminate threats to the fleet far away, before they came within striking distance. The lack of this capability is the main reason the Falklands taskforce suffered so badly in 1982 - and yet the RN has no firm plans to replace its current aged radar helicopters, which can't get very high or stay up very long.
Then, if F-35C carrier stealth fighters seemed too expensive, RN catapult carriers would be able to choose cheap and cheerful F-18s instead. This relatively affordable jet, in service with the US and around the world at the moment, is available in powerful new Super Hornet air-combat and Growler electronic-warfare configurations these days.
But all this is speculative, because - yet again - the Brit carriers are under serious threat of cancellation. With public finances under strain, the Defence budget is being eyed up for cuts. Despite the fact that the RN has slashed its surface fleet by a third or more so as to preserve the carriers, it may not get them anyway.
Not only is the RAF campaigning behind closed doors to scrap the joint RAF/Navy Harrier force early - so deliberately worsening the chance that any F-35Bs will actually be bought to replace them - the Army is also, disappointingly, agitating for the carriers to be axed.
If something isn't done now, the other two services may get their way. The main reason the carriers have survived to date has been the desire of the Labour government to channel work to shipbuilding yards, particularly ones in Scotland. Prime Minister Brown's constituency home overlooks one of these yards, and across the country on Clydeside it's only Navy shipbuilding pork which is keeping Labour MPs and MSPs in their seats.
But it seems a racing cert that the next Westminster government will be a Tory one, unconcerned about social regeneration through shipbuilding in Scotland. And Labour has chosen to defer the major spending on the carriers into the next government - effectively ensuring that they will be cancelled. This is because slowing down a project of this sort always makes it cost more.
The Conservatives might go forward with the carriers if a lot of money had already been spent and costs were under control; but Labour have ensured that this will not be the case. Delaying the project has meant that costs will balloon, and also that the Tories won't have to write off too huge a sum of public money when they cancel it altogether.
Who can save the carriers? Robert Peston, perhaps
Thus we have seen recently a last-ditch effort by persons unnamed among the companies building the carriers to save their lucrative contract. Robert Peston of the BBC has found himself in possession of leaked information revealing the surge in projected cost for the ships. The info would have come out soon anyway, but normally it would have been part of a large government data dump on the eve of Parliament breaking up for the summer recess.
This way the allied shipbuilding and defence firms get to put the blame for the cost increases on the government in advance and highlight the prospect of job losses and industrial misery right from the start, while politicians are still at work and the media are still paying attention.
This might still seem like a foolish move by the contractors, as it could lead exasperated politicians to cancel the ships right away. But Gordon Brown can't do that - he's got little enough chance at the election anyway without forcing thousands of voters in his own political strongholds onto the dole.
Furthermore, Quentin Davies - the current kit minister - has recently been manoeuvred by the Navy into firmly endorsing the carriers. Meanwhile, with resulting jobs fears rife in Scotland and elsewhere, there's the chance that Labour will be forced to do something to make the ships safer before the election.
We here on the Reg defence desk can understand the Army's objection to the carriers - or rather, their feeling that they should be last in the queue for cuts - but personally we believe they're wrong on this one. We'd argue that, unlike many other ongoing, horrifically overbudget defence projects, carriers are actually useful, to the Army as well as the RN.
To start with, a properly-equipped carrier is far the best way to fight a dangerous well-equipped enemy at sea. AWACS planes and modern fighters are the best card to play against sea-skimming shipkiller missiles and (better) most of the things which launch them. Proper AWACS also trumps diesel-electric submarines, keeping them submerged. This effectively pins them to the map and denies them even the ability to communicate. Sure, a naval anti-air commander would rather have super-duper missile destroyers too - and probably the moon on a stick while we're at it - but you can't always have everything you want.
Still, unlike many things which are only really useful against well-equipped enemies whom we'll probably never really fight, carriers are also good for everyday wars. They provide control of the skies and airstrike support without any need for a vast airbase ashore somewhere in the region: a base with a vast perimeter to guard, easily struck by even the cheapest terrorist-style weapons and dependent on expensive, vulnerable overland supply convoys.
The Army, in our opinion - and sure, it's only one man's opinion - would do well to remember their history. If we'd had proper carriers in the Falklands, there'd be a lot of Welsh Guardsmen still alive and well who today are long dead or still suffering from their injuries (hit in the bombing of the Sir Galahad). There would have been a lot more helicopters and other vital resources to hand in the fighting ashore, too, as the Atlantic Conveyor wouldn't have been sunk.
A fair number of British soldiers have been killed in enemy air attacks in the post World War Two era, in fact. And one might recall that every time a British fighter has shot down an enemy plane during that period, that fighter took off from a carrier to do so.
History shows that carriers are useful for the real wars which actually happen, as well as for the possible-perhaps wars for which one may or may not need to prepare. That's where carriers differ from things like Nimrod MRA4, Eurofighter/Typhoon Tranche 3, Type 45 and all the rest of them.
So, being friends to Her Majesty's fighting forces, we're hoping that the Queen Elizabeth ships survive. A tiny little extra factor in their favour would be presented by the existence of working, effective EMALS tech in America, so we're also hoping things go well for General Atomics on the just-announced deal. ®
*They can lift off vertically, but not with any useful amount of fuel and payload aboard - the vertical landing after a mission is only possible because fuel has been burned and weapons dropped. Vertical takeoffs are normally just for displays.