If there’s one thrill ride we’d love to try, it’s a carrier launch. Forget your roller coaster or bungee catapult – very, very few things can compare to the right-now acceleration that an aircraft carrier’s launch system can provide. If it’s good enough to fling several tons of aircraft into flight, it’s good enough for a speed junkie, right? Most of the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers use a CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery) systems that are steam-powered, but the the USS Gerald R. Ford class of carriers do not: they are incorporating an EMALS (ElectroMagnetic Aircraft Launch System), which is expected to place less stress upon aircraft while providing a more gradual acceleration pattern. Make no mistake, EMALS is still going to be the same swift motion that CATOBAR offered, and during testing, one 7,000 pound orange sled was used to prove that. Launched off of the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford during it’s upfitting before it’s move to active service, the sled gets all of the air you would expect. What you would not expect is that the sled has enough momentum to skip like a stone after the initial impact with the water, nor the viciousness of the acceleration between the release and the moment where the ship disappears and all that’s underneath the sled is seawater.
