Apart from China and USA, is there another country with a working prototype or doing advance researching into EMALS catapult technology today?
PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)
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antiterror13
Brigadier
I dont think any other countries doing it
Surely when PLAN Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, the head of the team that has won a top national award for the electromagnetic catapult, told Hong Kong Media in an interview last year 2015 that China does not lag behind the US in the development of electromagnetic catapult, it must have meant something.
Well, you can either believe that what he says is true and end the discussion right there, or you can examine the actual facts available.
And the facts are that the US has been launching full sized aircraft since 2010 with an EMALS system, with photos to show.
How many comparable launches by the Chinese EMALS system?
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Unless our layman detractors in here are claiming that they knows EMAL technology better than him.
Ma also stated that US only began its emal catapult in 2009 while China had already has a full working prototype for testing back in 2011.
He believes that China’s own R&D electromagnetic catapult is not only as good as the US and is more advanced in some areas.
Regardless of a person's title or achievements, sometimes the avenue and environment is much more meaningful and accurate when assessing the validity of claims.
I would rather hear what Admr. Ma's opinion on EMALs is when he is talking to PLAN insiders or the CCP government in private. That I would take it to the bank and not necessarily what he says to HK Media in a public forum.
Also the timeline is very vague. Did he actually utter those words or were they scribed later by media journalists?
If you want to get real technical EMALS technologies have always been in some stage of development for the past 50 years!
The technology itself is not anything new or any amazing breakthrough in science. Just the implementation and operating as a whole system on carriers is making people excited.
A $100 and couple trips to the hardware store you can build an EMALS system yourself in your home to launch a toy car. Conceptually it would not be very different that what's launching F-18s off the Ford.
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Intrepid
Major
There is only one country on earth, that manufactures new steam catapults. And there are possibly two countrys on earth able to manufacture EMALS in the future.
For what it's worth the original content was also reproduced by an official PLA website.
Last year, when this article was posted there was a lot of ruckus and fuss about just "how advanced" it could possibly be and whether the Rear Admiral was exaggerating, and how he could know how advanced the USN's EMALS is vs the EM cat that he had developed... as well as a lot of more disparaging statements saying that we had no proof of the Chinese EM cat actually launching anything, or even in operation, etc...
Now, personally I myself have taken the Rear Admiral's words with a grain of salt, especially the part about his EM cat being superior in some regards to the USN EMALS (though it definitely isn't impossible) -- however I do definitely believe that the overall narrative he has made about the progress of the domestic EM cats is true, such as having repeatedly tested it (likely with sleds, rather than aircraft I imagine), as well as having it reach a certain stage of maturity.
Also unspoken is the underlying premise that the EM cat may have demonstrated itself to be sufficiently competent to challenge the steam catapult project for a place on 002... and remember, this was from a year ago. Since then, we've seen the land based naval training facility at Xing Cheng/Huangdicun rapidly construct two different catapult trenches, one of which is thought to be the EM cat and the other the steam cat. Furthermore we've also since had persistent rumours that 002
As mentioned before, we might be incorrectly joining the dots and unable to account for some confounding factors, but the consensus that has been reached thus far I think is far from unreasonable.
Equation
Lieutenant General
The actual facts is the US NEEDS to show it off in order to get funding from Congress. On the other hand the PLAN doesn't, therefore can keep all of there launches classified.
Looking at the progress shown in the pictures and knowing that they still have a lot of hull work, the flight deck, the island, and knowing the amount of work that has to be done internally to bring everything together...
I am still inclined to say that a 2017 launch date for 001A is likely.
We shall see...time will tell us.
What you says is quite valid if Rear Admiral Ma is a politician lik e the US POTUS or US Sec. of State Hilliary Clintons but he is not.Rear Admiral Ma Weiming is a TECHNOCRAT, the inventor of China's own proprietary rights electromagnetic catapult and a specialist in electrical engineering.
If you want to know about his confifential report to PLAN or Chinese leadership then...
1. You must joined the PLAN and become a very high ranking officer there. He is a Rear Admiral.
2. If he is talking to the PLAN's insiders it won't be regarded as opinion any more. He is a specialist unlike the rest of us, we are simply layman in this field and many of us are armchair critics.
3. Rumors and media news are the only sources of information as far China military programs goe. As for verification, as many of us have often says, "China military is shroud in secrecy". As China watchers we should learn to be patient.
Don't worry, we don't have to wait much too long in this case. Within the next couyple of years, we will see whether who is right in their opinions. EMALS, Steam Catapult or None at all?
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