Date Posted: 27-Feb-2009

Jane’s Navy International

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EMALS forges ahead, says General Atomics
Casandra Newell

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) for the US Navy’s future carriers is ahead of its development schedule and preparing to enter phase two of high cycle testing (HCT-2), a senior executive at General Atomics Electronic Systems told Jane’s on 25 February.

Scott Forney, vice-president of the Electromagnetic Systems Division, said delivery of power inverters for the Prime Power Interface Subsystem (PPIS), which delivers power from the ship’s electrical distribution system to the EMALS energy storage generators, would start in March, with HCT-2 following in April.

Involving a dead-load launch, HCT-2 will repeat the test cycle performed at General Atomics facility in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2008, but will include the new PPIS inverter and its advanced software. The company also intends to assess the launch motor’s durability by testing it inside a hyperbaric chamber filled with corrosive chemicals.

“The launch control system, the electrical system and the rectifier are all being delivered and installed. The system is really starting to look shipboard ready,” Forney stated. A first aircraft launch is expected in January 2010.

EMALS – which employs a linear induction motor to accelerate aircraft off the flight deck – is one of the key technological advances for the Gerald R Ford-class carrier programme, replacing the C-13 steam catapults used in Nimitz-class carriers.

Potential benefits include a reduction in the wind-over-deck required for launch, a higher sortie rate, smoother launch (leading to less stress on airframes), the elimination of aircraft engine and inlet steam ingestion constraints, a smaller thermal signature, reduced topside weight and increased reliability.

The system is intended for installation in first-of-class Gerald R Ford (CVN 78), which is due to enter service in 2015.

Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding secured a USD5.1 billion contract for detailed design and construction of the ship in September 2008. The first steel was cut at Newport News, Virginia, in August 2005 under a separate USD2.7 billion advanced procurement contract and keel-laying is expected in late 2009.

All seems well on the surface, at least.