President Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to abandon electromagnetic aircraft catapults and return to 1950s-era steam launch systems — despite Navy reports that the electromagnetic system is now working as designed and contributing to higher aircraft sortie rates than older carriers. This episode of Sidequests covers how aircraft carrier catapults actually work, why EMALS was genuinely problematic during development and why Trump's original criticism was fair, what has changed since then, and why the order to reverse course now — with one carrier already under construction around the new system and steam manufacturing capacity largely dormant — may cost far more than the alternative it's meant to replace.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}