What is the potential of electromagnetic catapults on aircraft carriers?
Short answerThey are excellent, but without nuclear power their energy-storage demands consume too much valuable ship space.
NotesElectromagnetic catapults perform well, but the power architecture needed to support them creates a larger problem. A nuclear carrier can generate the required electricity without devoting the same proportion of internal volume to stored energy. A conventionally powered ship would have to surrender valuable space to batteries or another storage system, creating a ship-wide design penalty. For Britain, short-take-off and vertical-landing aviation paired with gas-turbine propulsion is therefore the easier system-level choice.