User:Justarklin/sandbox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus-class_hydrofoil

(New) Advancements:

Since the decommissioning of such Naval ships, many advancements have been made in the field of hydrofoil ships.  The abilities that hydrofoil ships have ave very standard and normal at lower speeds, this is because the foil being places in the water will only cause lift when the ship hits a certain velocity.  Which makes maneuvering at high speeds easy, while low speeds may be more difficult. This is eased by lifting the foil out of the water, making the ship handle like a normal hulled vessel, but losing the speed advantages.

Currently there are developments being made to combine the foil from a hydrofoil ship, with the low speed lift ability caused by lifting bodies.  Extra buoyancy will be added to the vessel by flowing air bubbles underneath the foil. This can be done with either a air scoop or a bubble generator.  The air scoop would be a simple device that would come above water and direct airflow to the bottom of the foil, or a pump that would shoot air from the surface, it would be more controlled, and the ability to change the amount of air running underneath would give many possibilities to the state of the foil in motion. This not only allows the hydrofoil to rise at slower speeds, but also acts like a slick, causing less friction, from the blanket of air that would be provided between the fin and the water, therefore capable of achieving higher speeds and better fuel economy. And a multitude of other factors of improvement.  This technology very effectively provides the best of both lifting bodies and hydrofoils in the sense that when a hydrofoil is traveling at faster speeds, It has no problem cutting through waves and wakes caused naturally and artificially by the ocean and other boats. Everything from first the materials that are Corrosion resistant, to the very shape of the fins provides it with such amazing capabilities.  This would make the ship faster and more efficient in the long run, but at first it would be very difficult to implement. First off finding a good location, that does not interfere with other dynamics of the high speed vessel.

This is more ideal than that of lifting bodies, that when they come in contact of waves and such, the depth of water the body is beneath the surface, is directly affected by the physical laws of Buoyancy.  This means when the body is deeper, it wants to rise with a larger force, and if it is merely shallow, the weight of the vessel will sink it.  Therefore taking the high speed cutting ability of a foil in rough, wave ridden seas, and combining it with the low speed maneuverability of lifting bodies, a compromise can be formed, providing the vessel with the ability to perform many more tasks with much more efficiency.

Another task being looked into, is to attempt to retrofit old naval vessels with hydrofoils. One of the main reasons for the decommission of these pegasus class ships was that they were pulling too much funding from larger vessels.  The navy would either need to cut the funding to larger ships, that had much bigger more important responsibilities, or cut the funding of granted, very cool new vessels, but ones that did not carry such responsibilities.  

The Idea of fitting advanced lifting systems to old ships could more than cut the price tag in half, effectively making the development of ships easier to accomplish with only limited funding.  The problem with fitting old ships with advanced systems such as these is that they would cause stresses that the ship was not designed for, calling for major reconstruction and design of the ship's structure and stability of Weight distribution. Most prominently the direct pressure point for where the new technology will attach to the old ship.  Things like major stresses, and placement of internal structural development of the vessel would all need to be gone over, calculated and redone. Even down to the types of materials might be changed, and things that affect the hydrodynamics of the ship.  Things that may be much weaker not even from a structural point of view, but rather from a chemical point. Simple yet costly and time consuming situations.  Steel sheets may need to be fitted with newer technologies like Carbon fibers or steel pipes might need newer nickel pipes to resist corrosion, especially on new things like air scoops.  Making sure that the bow shape and hull can handle the new systems. With everything considered, all the undoing and dismantling of things, then assembling and putting them back together, the cost of the completely new foils that will be retractable and allow the ship to still be able to go slow speeds in shallow water.

All these retrofitted and new costs added up, the price of the vessel will still be completely cut in half, because building a whole new vessel will cost so much more in new Raw material and the systems will be the newest  and most costly because people will not build an old ship, it just wouldn't be worth it. Things like computer systems, maybe sonar technologies, Navigation items safety devices fire suppression systems all add up.  Especially big items like massive engines used to propel the larger than life ships need to be capable of producing power that is quite impressive. Most current attempts only have been done with retro fitting ships to have lifting bodies connected to the bottom of their hull.  Allowing a nice gateway for hydrofoils. All these advancements are providing us with a very bright and hopeful future in the advancements in our navy, and maybe one day in the common waterway or even for commercial or play use.  These innovations have come by the want to provide our fleets with the best opportunities to succeed in their missions. And these new advancements are exactly that. Even though their deployment seemed to be short lived compared to that of other naval vessel types.