If the Chinese EMALs had problems, it won't get through to the stage where it would be selected for the 003. Remember this system along with a steam catapult, has and is continue to be tested for years in a testing facility in northern China. Things would have been sorted out in this facility before it would be on the carrier. Ford is also failing on non innovative systems like its elevator which took longer than the entire length of time of World War 2 to resolve.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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If the Chinese EMALs had problems, it won't get through to the stage where it would be selected for the 003. Remember this system along with a steam catapult, has and is continue to be tested for years in a testing facility in northern China. Things would have been sorted out in this facility before it would be on the carrier. Ford is also failing on non innovative systems like its elevator which took longer than the entire length of time of World War 2 to resolve.
If my memory is correct, the Chinese and US system are significantly different. The US system works on AC, whereas the Chinese one work on DC. I read somewhere that the Chinese mid-voltage DC system has significant technical advantages, and the US would have chosen the DC path too but at the time of Ford's design the DC technology was not yet mature.
Now depending on the nature of the Ford's EMAL problems, it may or may not be applicable to Chinese system.
I guess one other thing to add, although very minor, the Chinese have a ton of pride in their "domestic" designs and equipment, and the decision to include the EM catapults could also be viewed as a political move to show the world that they are technologically, in some aspects, on-par with the US. Certainly not to downplay the statement that they could very well have the confidence and the technical knowledge to go with the system, but politics seems to certainly drive the CMC and how they acquire new equipment.
On the contrary, I'd say in recent memory the last few decades show that they're more than willing to commission military equipment imported or older technology subsystems if it means they're judged to be more reliable and lower risk.
The PLA doesn't really do procurement out of pride or political boasting, and it would be a significant departure from the norm if they chose to go for EM cat over steam cat if the former wasn't judged to be sufficiently reliable and mature.
If anything the PLA's past history of procuring and commissioning new subsystems or weapons based on pride of political capital (or rather the lack thereof) is one of the reasons why the I believe the EM cat must be judged at a satisfactory level of maturity and risk.
I'm a bit confused you would say what you have, given how risk averse and cautious PLA procurement has been in recent if not living memory.
I read last year that General Ma Wei Ming, the Chief Navy officer leading the team to develop the electricity propulsion project, is very confident of his DC system, so much so that he proclaims his system is 10 years more advanced than the American counterpart.
no way to verify if his saying is true or not.
no way to verify if his saying is true or not.
Right on. People don't realise this stuff. My dad and his colleagues (60s and 70s kids) worked on research and development in superconductors for transport - maglev. This was back in the 90s. The groundwork was already established. Research take decades and despite the Shanghai maglev currently the only operational one in the world and has been for over a decade, the German technology that it uses a great deal of is and was utterly incomplete. Good enough for demonstrations does not equal finished commercial product. When it comes to high speed rail, lots of Japanese, German, French, and Canadian technology brochures were looked at and some engineers were lucky enough to get even greater details in snippets here and there but the entire set of technologies would need to be thoroughly understood and FINISHED by the Chinese ones working on fielding a completed commercial product. To ignore the immense manufacturing engineering problems that brochure level tendering doesn't give anyone. This is also the very first generation of Chinese HSR which is almost as demanding of the track engineering as it is with the trains. China's got three generations of HSR now with only gen 0 being highly dependent on various foreign technology snippet insights. So much of it has been in research within China since the 1990s. I suppose wanting to match Japan in transport even back then pays off.
EMALs would have been developed in various models, prototypes, and probably finished versions for a long time. A much longer time than common folks would imagine. If 003 certainly will make use of EMALs, they would have overcome hundreds of thousands of smaller technical problems over many years of trials, improvements, and new models probably even some in full scale.
The problems not with the basic technology or working principle, rather then the USA military leadership and procurement process (not my opinion, but the viewpoint of the )
Anyway, the EMALS was sold as cheap, short lead time development system, that require less weight ,space and manning (regards of operation and maintenance.)
This two picture will tell the issue of the EMALS and the advantage of steam :
The steam is at the end of several decades of improvement, the EMAL is at the beginning of the fielding.
Check the geometry of the two system, the steam designed to be insensitive of contamination/metal particles , next to impossible to jam/damage the steam catapult with a metal bolt dropped into the slot.
If an aircraft disintegrate on the field then after a low power test run it is safe with 99% confidence to operate the catapult.
Other hand , a bolt dropped into the EMAL then the electromagnetic field will pick it, move into the stator, and the rotor plate push it into the coils, damaging one or multiple of them.
Means if there is a crash-landing on the deck all EMALS catapult has to be disassembled and cleaned out prior of operation. And visibly it is not designed for that.
To make it even worst the EMAL units needs precise alignment, individually, most likely for stator replacement require tools and dockside environment, the steam has matured procedure how to do deep repairs on sea if needed.
So it is not the principle, but rather the original premise about "it will cure the cancer, covid and will extremely cheap on top of that ".
It is not that, most likely the final operational version will be bigger, heavier , require more maintenance and more personnel.
For the Chinese it doesn't matter, they will have to go through the learning curve, and the steam will be as painful for them like the EMALS.
Other hand the USA NAVY wasted the matured, stable system ,and blindly went into a several decade long development process, with early fielding, and risking to have useless carriers.
Just reminder, this happens in a motor if a metal ball ingester :
I'm not sure that is the case here. There is very little available on EMALS re lessons learned publicly or in the wider informed audience. Of course its entirely possible PLA has access to some "otherwise acquired" knowledge on the matter, but I do agree with "Anlsvrthng" that fundamentally American troubles are to do with the DoD procurement system being desperately broken. For the same reason USN had quite massive dramas with eg San Antonio and its "cutting edge" wiring delaying entry into service. I do suspect PLA/Chinese suppliers here just apply a more workable approach from the get go and get respective results. Call it a hunch though.