Navy Lakehurst to test new catapult
LAKEHURST — The Navy's next-generation electromagnetic aircraft catapult will be hurling test loads down the Lakehurst test track next month, and the project will be ready for test launching the first aircraft in summer 2010, program manager Capt. Randy Mahr said Thursday.
Navy officers and workers with the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) program gathered in wind-driven rain to celebrate completion of the first full-scale catapult, which precedes four shipboard catapults to be installed on the planned aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford in 2015.
The $573 million contract to produce the EMALS system was awarded to primary contractor General Atomics of San Diego, Calif., in July. Testing and maintaining the system will keep the Lakehurst test site in business for at least 50 years, Mahr said, and obtaining the mission was a major coup for supporters of New Jersey military bases.
Steam-powered catapults built at Lakehurst and used since the 1950s have "shot more than 5 million times," said Kathleen Donnelly, director of the Navy's support and launch and recovery equipment engineering at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. 'Now we move into the era of the electromagnetic catapult, which uses linear motors instead of steam pistons."
Tests with the 300-foot long EMALS will gradually increase speeds and loads "until it is capable of launching a F-35 off the bow," she said.
Electromagnetic power is more controllable - allowing operators to better adjust takeoff speed and acceleration speeds for different aircraft - and it has far fewer parts to maintain, said Sean Brennan, the program's chief engineer. That will offer benefits with less wear and tear on aircraft, lower maintenance costs and fewer demands on aircraft carrier crews, Navy officers said.
Still, navies are famously conservative, and it took some debate before Navy officials and military-minded members of Congress could see the benefits in moving away from the tried-and-true steam catapult, recalled Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., whose Congressional district includes the Navy section of the joint base.
"There was a lot of reluctance at first," and that prevented the EMALS idea — a concept that dates back to the 1980s - from rising higher on the Navy's research and development priorities, Smith said. But, Lakehurst engineers argued that technical issues could be overcome and the benefits would be worth it, Smith said, and in 2003 he and other supporters inserted an EMALS item into military budget legislation. In 2004, the Bush administration requested the $20.6 million appropriation.
Technical and management problems dogged the program, while primary
contractor General Atomics tested the prototype motor/generator that powers the catapult at its Tupelo, Miss., plant. The latest obstacle had included vibration affecting the linear motors, a problem that was addressed with bearing redesign, Mahr said.
Congressional skeptics quizzed Mahr again last summer at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing, but the Navy had already recommitted itself to using EMALS on the USS Gerald Ford after a technical review of the system's progress.
In appearance and operation, EMALS will appear scarcely different to pilots and flight deck crews - minus the billowing steam, clanging catapult brakes, and high-maintenance equipment, Brennan said.
But, all that heavy iron associated with steam will be a fact of Navy life for years to come on older ships. "We'll have steam catapults on CVN77 (the USS George H.W. Bush), I'm told, until 2059," Mahr said.