Steam-driven catapult

The steam catapult was used for over 60 years before being replaced by a system demonstrated when the catapult was a new product

In May PE reference is made to the new electromagnetic launch system for aircraft to replace the "conventional" steam-driven catapult. 

Members may be interested to know that that steam catapult was developed in Britain based on an idea the Germans failed to get working for launching V1 "buzz bombs". I was an apprentice at Brown Bros. Edinburgh in 1948 when they built the first one and was loaned to Ferranti as a junior draughtsman to draw the test equipment for its trials. The test version was installed on the light fleet carrier Hermes and after successful sea trials it went to USA where the Americans liked it so much that they took the old style catapult out of a carrier they were building and installed the new type. This is the "conventional" catapult referred to. D.T.N. Williamson, who led the team designing the test gear for the sea trials of the steam catapult, read a few years later an article on linear motors. He had an O gauge model railway about 100ft, long built on the outside of the test equipment laboratory where he demonstrated, with a linear motor between the tracks and a much modified locomotive, a working model of the system which drives the "new" electromagnetic launch system. So the steam catapult was used for over 60 years before being replaced by a system demonstrated when the catapult was a new product.

Alfred Reading, Surrey

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