Steam catapult

Steam catapult

Following World War II, the Royal Navy was developing a new catapult system for their fleet of carriers. Commander C. C. Mitchell, RNVR, recommended a superheated steam-based system using a slotted cylinder as an effective and efficient means to launch the next generation of naval aircraft. One motive was that the British ships were smaller than their American counterparts and so they had shorter catapult runs, making hydraulic catapults ineffective for launching the new heavier jetfighters. Trials on HMS Perseus, flown by pilots such as Eric "Winkle" Brown, from 1950 showed its effectiveness. NATO navies introduced steam catapults based on the British design in the mid-1950s; the U.S. Navy was also motivated by the need to launch heavy nuclear-armed jet bombers such as the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior and to avoid accidental fatalities caused by flammable hydraulic fluid. Gunpowder-driven catapults were also contemplated, and would have been powerful enough, but would also have introduced far greater stresses on the airframes and might have been unsuitable for long-term use.