The EMALS appears to be an interesting challenge but getting steam to operate the catapults was no walk in the park when it came to keeping the boiler safety valves in their correct position and at the same time not tripping all the steam powered equipment through a sudden drop in pressure.
As far as I am aware it is the Americans that are doing the development of this system and they definitely need it working much sooner than us and they do not appear to be unduly worried? (question)
Next bunch of questions
is it right the EMALS motor generator each weigh in at just over over 80,000 pounds, and are they 13.5 feet long, plus almost 11 feet wide and possibly 7 feet tall.
My reading tells me the Gerald Ford Class requires 12 of these so would that suggest we would need 6? Folks here are far better informed and I am just curious regarding this new technology which is clearly very 21st century.
Like others here I have read the criticisms regarding costing to upgrade our carriers to a cat and trap configuration, we read numbers in the £2bn range but on American sites that are critical of this launch system, they claim it would cost hundreds of million of dollars to convert the Ford Class from EMALS to steam catapults. Perhaps we should let them carry out our work or at least the costings! (tongue in cheek observation) Millions to do the plumbing for all those steam catapults, but for what we are told is all but a plug and play option it is going to cost billions of pounds (not dollars)
These are all questions and none are in any way statements