- #71
cjl
Science Advisor
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godscountry said:The Navy has implemented electric catapults on its next generation aircraft carriers and most likely will retrofit all existing steam catapults as time goes on.
Retrofitting wouldn't really be possible - current gen aircraft carriers don't make nearly enough electricity to run an all electric catapult system, and it would involve a pretty extensive redesign to make it possible. I believe the plan is just to replace the current carriers with the new ones (Ford class), rather than trying to retrofit the Nimitz class carriers with a ton of new tech.