I got "Theseare not the droids you're looking for." after clicking the link above. This is a problem with all linked pictures with URL "c2.staticflickr.com". I guess flickr does not like hard link. Can you repost the photo by uploading it on this site?
PLAN Catapult Development Thread, News, etc.
- Thread starter antiterror13
- Start date
by78
General
Here you go. The full-resolution (3334 x 977) version is .
(2048 x 600)
It all depends on how much testing the Chinese do on the new systems before integrating them on the carrier.
The Ford simply integrated too many systems with minimal testing. The EMALS for example, I seem to remember the land based tests being nowhere near what you would need on an operational aircraft carrier, the Chinese (at least modern Chinese) seem to be a lot more conservative with testing before integrating a system. The Chinese test components extensively to the point of building the carrier island on land, catapult on land, heck even building entire replicas of the deck on land.
The Ford's electrical elevators are another boondoggle which only now will get a land based testing rig made to test them to fix the issues. You would expect them to do this before putting the system into the carrier, rather than now, right?
I agree with @Jeff Head that the main issues with the Zumwalt and LCS were political.
The politicians drove the specs for those ships which resulted in them being such a poor fit for the US Navy.
The Ford simply integrated too many systems with minimal testing. The EMALS for example, I seem to remember the land based tests being nowhere near what you would need on an operational aircraft carrier, the Chinese (at least modern Chinese) seem to be a lot more conservative with testing before integrating a system. The Chinese test components extensively to the point of building the carrier island on land, catapult on land, heck even building entire replicas of the deck on land.
The Ford's electrical elevators are another boondoggle which only now will get a land based testing rig made to test them to fix the issues. You would expect them to do this before putting the system into the carrier, rather than now, right?
I agree with @Jeff Head that the main issues with the Zumwalt and LCS were political.
The politicians drove the specs for those ships which resulted in them being such a poor fit for the US Navy.
I don't know how many test would be needed to consider the EMALS catapult safe and ready for fully operational according to this link the USN conducted 24,000 launches of the EMALS on shore;
Do we have any idea how many test the PLAN has conducted with it's version of the EMALS catapult?
Too bad there are zero really good photos of CV-18 construction progress so we all can get a good look at the ship to see how far she has progressed in construction..
How many of those 24,000 launches were with actual aircraft with a combat load?
I suspect most, if not all, the land based launches were done with a test weight which wasn't even equivalent to a combat load.
Only way to explain the current situation.
They also seem to have forgotten to test turn-around time and service life properly.
Brumby
Major
This is what the Assistant Secretary of the Navy said
I would not even be charitable with words here - Geurts is just lying.
If the Senate Committee even bothered to read the annual DOTE reports.
Even from the 2016 DOTE report, the Navy knew the EMALS wasn't meeting the MCBCF target by a mile based on limited load testing and probably statistically extrapolated i.e. 400 vs a target of 4166.
The 2017 DOTE came with the bulk of the load testing i.e. 3801 representative load test and 523 aircraft launch from land. However it just confirm the poor results from 2016.
The 2018 DOTE report included 747 at sea launches but the MCBCF was even worst than originated projected i.e. in 747 launches it suffered 10 critical failures vs. a target of 4166.
In total, the USN conducted a total of 5077 test launches. The 24,000 launches quoted is total BS.
There is only very vague saying by rear admiral Yin Zhuo in a TV talk program in 2018, in it he said "launch test of J-15, many hundreds (成百) to over a thousand (上千) times". The Chinese words was "成百上千", I will leave it to other Chinese speaker to comment on interpretation. To me, this kind of expression means over 1000 but below 2000. His words also seems to me to exclude dead-weight tests.
Another difference is that ship deck keeps rolling and going up and down. The sled (with aircraft) will exert very high friction force on the launch rail at very high speed. This causes damage leading to lower reliability. It also causes the launching force applied to the aircraft varies a lot, leading to excessive stress to the fuselage (F-18). So the perfect regulating algorithm does not work in real sea state. Essentially, the land test site is just a laboratory. I personally think that the PLAN test site at the coast is a better choice (closer to reality) than the USN test site at lakehust. The reason is that at the coast, there will be very strong wind from many directions. The wind can create strong forces between the sled and rail simulating the sea state to a good point.
Read somewhere that this integration has the problem that they have to shut down all four catapult when they are doing maintenance on one of them.