General Atomics, fresh off of the long road to success implementing Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) for the US Navy’s Ford-Class of aircraft carrier is now offering the system to interested international navies to build at scale to support drones . EMALS and AAG offer a simpler system to launch aircraft, which means that ships as small as destroyers and sea base ships can use the system to launch low maintenance drones. How will EMALS and AAG work? Compared to traditional steam catapults on aircraft carriers, as seen at the start of both initial movies of the Top Gun movie franchise, EMALS uses electricity to power magnets to launch aircraft off ships.
The uses of electromagnetic energy instead of steam and pistons allow for less maintenance and more gradual force to launch aircraft. One can watch a video below: One can also read the Simple Flying guide to aircraft catapults below: New technology is coming to aircraft carriers to launch and recover aircraft. But there is also Advanced Arresting Gear or AAG.
AAG also uses magnetism to slow down a landing aircraft on an aircraft carrier, and is more maintenance friendly. One can review the General Atomics brochure above. OK, so how will EMALS and AAG help put drones on carriers? A January 17 Naval News report noted that General Atomics now offers a drone launcher using a smaller version of EMALS technology in the recent United States Surface Navy Association Symposium’s exhib.
