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 around for over 15 years so naturally trump lost interest
Is this because of his obsession with magnets and water?
Can the military not just lie to him and tell them they’ve done it it’s not like he’s going to check. Even if he did he wouldn’t know what he was looking at because his brain, not something to write home about the best of times, has now turn to cottage cheese.
He’ll be directing the military to return to wooden ships and musket next.
It’s been over 100 years since the last wooden battalion was sunk! That obviously means they are superior than metal ships
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.
“Gold is the best material, all new vessels will be made out of solid gold.”
“But gold is incredibly weak, malleable, heavy, expensive…”
“GOOOLLLDDD!”
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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.
Because it’s electric?
No, because it has magnets.
Trump is notoriously afraid of magnets. It upsets him that they would put a magnet on something that’s supposed to float on the sea, and he worries about them sinking with the magnets still on them. I read through one of his rants on the topic, verbatim. The guy is stupid. Very stupid indeed. And senile.
The man really does not understand that electricity is the purest and highest form of energy there is.
Basic physics concepts are quite considerably beyond him. Understanding that fire is hot just about maxes out his mental capacity.
Remember when we used to laugh at George Bush, he looks like an intellectual juggernaut next to trump.
On the bright side, the new carriers will probably get about a mile from shore before their hulls crack and they sink.
The world will yield to US might when these are installed.
Trump is putting out Aladeen vibes…
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.
Bro most of America lives paycheck to paycheck under an inhumane capitalistic system designed to make us desperate, afraid, and without a sense of community. We are dependent upon employment to get whatever overpriced and impersonal healthcare we are allowed by our employer-provided insurance. We have no savings. We are guaranteed no time off, and we can be fired in most places at any time for any reason. Our educational infrastructure has been systematically degraded over the past few decades, as have all our consumer protections and what few tools we’ve ever had to fight these oppressive conditions. Our kids get sent to war because joining the military is about the only method the poor and undereducated have of getting a chance of going to college or securing a mortgage. The people fucking you and the rest of the world aren’t Americans, they’re our oligarchs.
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.
EMALS has been a project for 20 years, and yet they still use steam to launch those fuckers.
No they don’t use steam that’s the point, Quasimodo wants to go back to steam for some bizarreason probably because he thinks magnets don’t work when they get wet.
Have they finished turning the California water faucet 37 degrees towards Canada yet? Or reopening Alcatraz? How many of these crackhead ideas go anywhere?
Well his latest scheme appears to be to give Greenland a bunch of expensive oil drilling equipment. He genuinely seems to believe that if they just start drilling for oil no one’s going to stop them.
I’ve met flat earthers with better critical thinking skills than this idiot.
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.
I wonder if it’s physically possible to build a supersonic biplane…
I suppose it would be technically possible, the issue would be that the moment you start to turn the aircraft, the air turbulence generated by the upper wing would rip the lower wing off. This is a problem even at lower speeds which is why double decked wing designs stop being made.
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
There really were steam-powered aircraft, weirdly enough. Maybe trump thinks they never got a fair shake.
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!”
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.
