UK Carrier Project A Strategic Asset.
The Choice of Carrier or Amphibious Strike.
On the 19th April 2012, I personally wrote to David Cameron, offering my support at his choice of Conventional Aircraft Carriers and the F35C in the 2010 defence review.
This was at a time when it became clear that wheels were in motion to revert back to the F35B and therefore a V/STOL(vertical and/or Short take Off and Landing) variant of the Queen Elizabeth class. I wrote to him again on the 2nd May 2012 upon discovery of an alternative launching system, the designer claiming the system to be
both tried and tested by the US Navy, cheaper and easier to convert than the then proposed EMALS system. On the 26th April 2012 PUS Ursula Brennen told the HOC PAC that no decision on the carriers had been taken. On the 10th May The U turn was announced.
I received a reply from the Cabinet office stating that my concerns had been passed onto the MOD, to this date I have not received a reply. Along with this I sent separately a request under FOI rules to the MOD asking the following:
Dear Ministry of Defence, Were other innovations and designs of catapult considered before EMALS was selected for use on the Queen Elizabeth class? If so, what were they and to what level were costing’s completed?
Again at the time of writing there has been no reply.
The Strategic Choice
There is no doubt from Analysts and commentators worldwide that only CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off Barrier Arrested Recovery) type carriers can supply true Carrier strike. V/STOL delivers a more restricted role, that of amphibious strike. That in turn restricts sea room and survivability as the carriers need to be closer to the
action to affect events. Air to air refuelling (AAR) is at present not possible for the F35B and therefore restricts operations to operate with land based or allied AAR assets. That may not be possible in missions east of Suez or the South Atlantic due to lack of both availability and politics of neighbouring states. There is also a restricted Airborne Early Warning (AEW) cover as rotary platforms lack the range and power of the fixed wing versions and again land based systems are affected in the same way as land based AAR assets.
Lockheed Martin vice president Steve O’Bryan has said that most F-35B landings will be purely conventional in order to reduce stress on the vertical lift components.
Conventional operations also reduce the risk of self-induced foreign object damage. Is this a vote of confidence? If most of the landings are conventional, when will the F35B be doing vertical landings on the carrier? It is also a known fact that F35C is superior in every way to the F35B. Because of this the F35B will be forced to utilise a rolling landing, relying solely on its brakes to stop on a wet, slippery and pitching deck.
The F35B also has issues with Weight, Altitude and Temperature (WAT) while operating in hot climates. Both these issues are discussed in greater detail in Nigel “Sharkey” Wards paper, included in this brief.
The problem is no one can guess where the next threat will come from and requires the most adaptable systems to cover all eventuality’s. Failure to do so I believe not only threatens security but our Maritime requirements for the supply of food and energy.
QE class Conversions.
The Idea of converting the wrong Labour Government choice of VSTOL carriers to CATOBAR in the 2010 review was without doubt the most forward thinking Strategic decision any HMG had taken since the introduction of Polaris. It was unfortunate that it happened at a time of fiscal tightening and that the fiscal situation caused the U turn. The cost of the conversion and time delay seems to be the main reasons for the U turn. But that in itself poses several questions. Did the MOD look at all the alternatives? Did the MOD opt for the right system?
Internal Combustion Catapult Aircraft Launch System (ICCALS)
As I mentioned earlier, there has been an alternative launching system for conventional carriers since 1959, Its adoption in the US Navy was only dropped because of US navy politics and NASA being involved in a vertical launch system and EMALS (Electro Magnetic Launch System) was chosen because of NASA's involvement. NASA dropped out when it was realised that EMALS wasn’t delivering as advertised and billions more needed to be spent to get it to work.
The ICCALS system has launched aircraft with greater efficiency, at less stress to the airframes and reducing maintenance costs for a long time before EMALS was off the drawing board. Dick Bushway, the Advanced Technology Catapult Procurement Officer for NAVAIR PMA 251, budgeted $35 million in 1997 to build and test an early
ICCALS as a competitor to the EMALS system. In 1998, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, proposed to co-fund and co-develop Electromagnetic Launch. NAVSEA decided that this was the way to proceed given the large increases in cash and personnel that this would provide. Also, Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) found itself in the position of being a technology proposer and technology integrator at the same time. To avoid this conflict and in agreement with the Navy's decision for EMALS, pursuit of ICCALS technology was defunded and terminated to avoid a
conflict with EMALS although the ICCALS program was building and testing hardware.
An Advanced Technology Catapult concept for installation for backfit or new construction is available which provides greater performance than any current catapult including EMALS while significantly reducing weight, volume requirements and development time and cost, installation difficulty and costs and operating costs.
The US Navy has indicated by the upgraded performance specifications for the EMALS electromagnetic catapult that the current C13 steam catapults are unable to perform the full range of tasks that will be asked of them in the future. The EMALS catapult technology was designed to fulfil a specific range of tasks for Ford Class aircraft carriers which have sufficient generating capacity to support EMALS which should be able to meet all of the future launch needs for those carriers, once properly sorted out.
However the EMALS launch system cannot be installed aboard the CVA Queen Elizabeth unless a substantial increase in generating capability is installed. This proposal, the Internal Combustion Catapult Aircraft Launch System (ICCALS), is designed to utilize the C13 steam catapults as the basis to exceed the performance specifications of the EMALS catapult – at a significantly lower hardware cost per catapult and greatly reduced cost for installation. The technology goal is to build, demonstrate and qualify the ICCALS technology to modify the current C13-2 steam catapults as currently used aboard the Nimitz Class carriers to use a combustion gas based energy source rather than steam to drive the current catapult launch engines.
This allows the launch of a wider range of present and future vehicles, both manned and unmanned, under full closed loop control, and insures a more precise and controlled rate of acceleration over the entire launch event. The designer also proposes to further simplify the C13-2 launch system, increase the launch capacity, nd provide closed loop control of acceleration and end speeds of the modified C13- 2 catapult. Due to simplification, the MOD can reduce the level of manning currently required to maintain and operate the C13-2 steam catapults. This specifically allows installation of catapults aboard ships that cannot be easily fitted with the current steam or EMALS catapults such as the LHA class ship or converted CVEs.
The designer Mr Clint Stallard, had been in contact with the HMG before the U turn, as is still pursuing American orders for possible use of his catapult on LHA6 and as a backfit forthe Nimitz class as it is not possible to use EMALS on these platforms due to the power requirements.
It is worth noting both classes will be in service for the 20-30 years and that both the CVN77 and the earlier CVN Enterprise were designated to receive this catapult. In fact the USS Enterprise has had parts of the system installed for over 30 years. It has also been revealed by investigations from the catapult designer that the US Navy would be quite prepared to supply 4 catapults and one arrestor system for UK use when the USS Enterprise decommissions in 2013.
Because they are kept at A1 conditions at all times, they would in affect be as good as new systems but at less than half the cost. The designer, who was until recently the lead Engineer at Ingals Shipbuilding in the USA, has stated that the conversion would be possible within two years (2015) FOR BOTH CARRIERS at a cost of less than was quoted in the U turn for one. One has to ask a final question, HMG could have had the cake and cream, why haven’t we now?
T A Dainton For DefenceSynergia.
