Trump has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too ‘complicated’
After nearly a decade of loudly complaining about the fact that modern US aircraft carriers use electromagnetic systems to launch fighter jets instead of steam-powered catapults, Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace the modern system with the old-fashioned catapults he prefers.
Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, to make the change he has had his heart set on since at least 2017, when he first described his idea to Time magazine.
The memorandum gives the Pentagon leaders 60 days to come up with “a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of” the USS Doris Miller, a Ford-class aircraft carrier, which is already two years behind schedule.
EMALS has been a project for 20 years, and yet they still use steam to launch those fuckers.
This is so obviously irrational that I’m surprised that his cabinet hasn’t removed him for incompetence just for this. The man is a dotard.
His cabinet wouldn’t have their cushy jobs if it wasn’t for that dotard.
They’re not gonna kill the goose that lays their golden eggs.
The inevitable lunacy of your garden variety dictator. Dictate ALL the things, my whims are more important than reality.
I can’t wait until trump orders the aircraft carrier to be made capable of dive-bombing.
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Because it’s electric?
Nevermind the electronic valves and electronic systems that control the steam, it just can’t be electric where it counts. This is the stupidest president ever.
The man really does not understand that electricity is the purest and highest form of energy there is.
On the bright side, the new carriers will probably get about a mile from shore before their hulls crack and they sink.
I really hate how Americans are screwing the world via Trump but at least he is also screwing Americans. Not quite balance but at least Americans should be feeling some of the pain that they insist on inflicting on the rest of the world.
at least he is also screwing Americans
It’s almost as if he’s really a tool of Putin and the Saudis and doesn’t give two fucks about America.
Edit: I can’t believe I forgot about Israel.
The world will yield to US might when these are installed.
Trump is putting out Aladeen vibes…
Have they finished turning the California water faucet 37 degrees towards Canada yet? Or reopening Alcatraz? How many of these crackhead ideas go anywhere?
These sound a little more like “friend’s stoner older brother that lives in his buddy’s garage” ideas to me!
Yeah but they’re from a pedophile who snorts adderall
I can only imagine he really cares about this because he’s invested in the company that makes the steam-powered systems.
What we’ll probably hear from him next is that he prefers steam gauges over glass cockpits and that all aircraft, civilian or military, must be retrofitted with the former. And biplanes, the Pentagon must start buying and using them. Everybody knows (except for Communists) that two wings are better than one.
There really were steam-powered aircraft, weirdly enough. Maybe trump thinks they never got a fair shake.
I think it’s more like “bring back whatever I watched on film between 1955-1990 as that’s the last time the world felt familiar”. Steam catapults from Top Gun, TriStar jet because triples are best, PanAm airlines because the stewardesses had miniskirts and cleavage. Fuck it, someone call Howard Hughes while we’re at it
It’s all fun and games until the itch.io catapults start taking over.
Maybe farmers should start watering plants with brawndo? After all, “It has electrolytes, what plants crave!”
EM launchers do pose some issues to aircraft electronics that require a lot of redesign for shielding.
Steam launchers put significantly more stress on the aircraft, which means they have to be reinforced to support the poorly controlled initial spike in force.
This idiot thinks he is an expert on everything. More people need to tell the baby NO.
Tell him No? Is that what you think the primary issue is, here? That his governing style needs more restraint?
Well… Yeah, kinda at a base level. If the law actually did its job and told him ‘no’ when he wanted to avoid prison, or even told him no to a million other illegal things he did, it’d be a lot better I think
To be fair a third of anything said to him is sycophantic praise, so why wouldnt he think he’s a genius?
I’m pretty sure it’s 100% at this point. I’m starting to think he’s not even a liar at all and he is just insanely delusional from all the yes men
Grown ups are talking sweety…
And even with this, the US Navy isn’t going back in time anywhere as far or as fast as the US Department Of Health which has already reached the 18th century under a leadership that denies that vaccines work.
Join me in some wild speculation about this aircraft carrier which is already behind schedule:
The ship, named for Messman Second Class Doris Miller, is the first aircraft carrier named for both an enlisted sailor and an African American.[9] The ship will be the second to honor Miller, who received the Navy Cross for his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor; the first ship was USS Miller (FF-1091).[10] It is currently the only Gerald R. Ford-class carrier to be named after a person who was not a former president.
The president’s changes will slow things down. Now why would he want to slow that aircraft carrier down?
“The future Trump-class battleship – the USS Defiant – will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans,” Phelan said…
“The U.S. Navy will lead the design, along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.
I can only imagine the hard facepalming going on in the Navy right now.
How many more before this government collapses, as it should? It’s truly an emperor-no-clothes situation.
Depends on what else Pootin and Nyetenyahoo want destroyed in the US govt by their kompromat chaos agent.
He’s gotta check with the Saudis, too.
