At present, the C- 130 steam catapult equipped on the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is 76.3 meters long and can eject two carrier-based aircraft every minute, which is powerful enough to eject a two-ton car to the sea two kilometers away.
Today, only the United States has fully mastered the steam catapult technology, and even the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "De Gaulle" has adopted the American steam catapult technology. Russia, Britain, Italy, Spain and other countries can't develop a steam catapult that can really pass the technical process. They can only use a sliding deck on their own aircraft carriers (that is, the end of the deck is turned into an uphill, and the carrier aircraft rushes out of the deck along the uphill after taking off, forming an oblique throwing motion), and the operational efficiency is far less than that of the steam catapult. Although the United States is ahead in the field of steam catapults, its inherent shortcomings determine that it will be replaced by newer technologies.
From the working principle, the steam catapult uses high-pressure steam to push the piston to drive the slider on the ejection track to eject the carrier aircraft connected with it. It is huge, consumes a lot of steam and wastes a lot of electricity when working. Only about 6% steam is used. In order to manufacture and transport steam, the aircraft carrier should be equipped with seawater desalination devices, large boilers and countless pipelines, which has an amazing workload and maintenance. Its biggest disadvantage is that it has a large ejection force and cannot launch drones. Because of its light weight, active unmanned aerial vehicles will be torn by acceleration during ejection.