USS Midway Museum
Steam Catapult Panel Graphic & Animation
Steam Catapult Panel Graphic & Animation
Requested by the Midway Museum to produce a graphic explaining the ship's steam catapult system, I proposed also building an animation to more clearly demonstrate this complex process to the museum's general audience.
Part of my enjoyment in developing these products was doing the research: reading Navy operation manuals, exploring the ship, speaking with former carrier pilots, flight deck crew members, and working with an engineer who designed and developed shipboard steam catapult systems.
Part of my enjoyment in developing these products was doing the research: reading Navy operation manuals, exploring the ship, speaking with former carrier pilots, flight deck crew members, and working with an engineer who designed and developed shipboard steam catapult systems.
This graphic was developed for a series of flip panels that docents use in their "Cat Talk" presentations to museum visitors. It compresses a complicated process into a single panel.
In the shot below it can be seen next to the animation, which is playing on a weatherized large screen video display, recently integrated into the docent presentation.
In the shot below it can be seen next to the animation, which is playing on a weatherized large screen video display, recently integrated into the docent presentation.
Below, a docent uses the animation to help explain details of the procedure to some curious museum visitors after his formal presentation.
The graphic was also published as part of an article called "Catapult Choreography", by CDR Mike Detchemendy USN (Ret) in the Fall 2014 edition of "The Hook", the official journal of the Tailhook Association. https://www.tailhook.net/A_Hook_Magazine.html
Two versions of the animation
Immediately below is an early developmental version of the animation. It was ultimately chosen for its easier integration with the live docent presentations on the flight deck. This version is shorter and is silent, allowing each docent to narrate the process and repeat it at their discretion.
Below is the last version, which includes a (scratch) voice-over narration track. Its purpose was to be used in an un-manned automated exhibit near the steam accumulators down on the Hangar Deck. By this version, I had replaced the F-18 aircraft with an A-7 that replicates the actual aircraft up on the flight deck at the "Cat Talk" presentation, along with numerous other enhancements.
The two images below are renders of a 3D model I am building of the catapult system for an Augmented Reality project.
