Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System

Remember, when the ship rolled out of the yards in 2017, people were really worried about the advanced technology on that ship.

One of them being the EMALS, which is the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, the AAG, which is the Advanced Arresting Gear System, also electromagnetic, and the last one is the Advanced Weapons Elevators, the AWE.

So those three systems are all new to that ship.

It's an electric ship.

Many lives have been saved because of the Osprey.

There are still plenty of helicopter pilots out there that are suspicious of the Osprey, but quite frankly, I think it's a proven technology.

I think EMALS has gone down this same path, and a three hundred and twenty-four-day combat deployment with combat in Venezuela and Iran proves that.

No significant issues with the catapults or the arresting gear.

That means a pilot weighing 180 pounds is effectively experiencing a load of 540 to over 700 pounds pressing against their body in that moment.

The newer electromagnetic aircraft launch system, EMALS, on ships like the USS Gerald R. Ford is designed to provide a smoother, more controlled acceleration curve compared to the spike you get from steam.

Whether that translates to meaningfully less physiological stress on pilots over time is actually one of the open questions this proposed study would try to answer.

Now, catapult launches get a lot of the attention, but landing is arguably the more violent event.

Then the aircraft is free and flying, over the bow of the ship with very little altitude and the ocean directly ahead.

The newer Gerald R. Ford-class carriers use an electromagnetic aircraft launch system called EMALS, which offers more precise control over energy delivery across different aircraft types and weights.

But the Abraham Lincoln and the rest of the Nimitz class still use steam, and will for the foreseeable future.

The arrested landing is what most people focus on when they think about carrier aviation.

... and then he runs with it years later, and I think that's part of this.

Because we did, we do know that either, that EMALS had problems.

The electromagnetic launch system had issues, really serious issues.

You know, it caused delays, it was bad reliability, all sorts of stuff.