Progress on China's Second Aircraft Carrier

It seems the aircraft carrier has the ski jump. This would make it questionable whether or not it would receive catapults. This seems to be an adaptation of the Varyag rather than a new design. There have been claims both ways.

The ski jump would limit which aircraft it can carry and what range they can have. This would suggest China is still thinking of the carrier as an extension of the CAP rather than a long range strike platform. The first two (three?) carriers may be meant as escort carriers for the larger fleet carriers to come.

Any one with an idea when the launch will be?

china-defense.blogspot.com...

a reply to: anzha

More progress on the 2nd carrier:

china-defense.blogspot.com...

china-defense.blogspot.com...

and Jane's gives info above and hints the 3rd carrier will have catapults:

www.janes.com...

Short based Ops?

My understanding is you can't have cats and a ramp as it would need some serious front undercarriage?

Though I suppose you could Remove the ramp, but the Chinese are building so quickly I imagine they wouldn't bother with a mod and just build a new one!

Well this one will be more of a prototype. It is likely to have tons of problems but, you have to build them to figure out have how to do it right. And they can not be pleased the US is helping India with its Aircraft Carriers.

Unless you could have a hydraulically controlled ramp that lays flat for CAT launches..

a reply to: anzha

This kind of pattern - moving from buying foreign hardware, building a domestic version, and then tweaking that version - is something we can see in a variety of Chinese military and aerospace vehicles.

For example, the Soviet Union sold the technical blueprints for the Romeo-class submarine to China in the 1950s, prior to the Sino-Soviet Spit, and China produced a copy of the sub they called the Type 033. Later, they produced an improved version of the sub they called the Type 035, which was produced in a number of variants intended for both domestic use and export.

At about the same time, China bought the bits and pieces needed to produce four Riga-class frigates from the Soviet Union; these were shipped to China and essentially built as kits, and the Chinese called them the Type 053 frigates. As with the Type 033 and 035 submarines, a number of other variants of the 053 frigates were produced with different weapons and equipment, some for domestic use and some for export.

Even China's manned Shenzhou spacecraft is based on a Russian design. The re-entry module in particular is clearly a slightly scaled-up Soyuz capsule, and by all accounts the Chinese purchased a used Soyuz re-entry module in the late 1980s or early 1990s to use for research purposes. Since then the Chinese have modernized the design and made it their own, but it is still based on the Soyuz vehicle used first by the Soviets and now by the Russians.

Given this pattern, it shouldn't be surprising that China will first copy the basic Kuznetsov/Liaoning design, then adapt the design to better fit their needs. Whatever they believe those needs to be.

a reply to: PhloydPhan

Another update to the Chinese 2nd carrier.

china-defense.blogspot.com...

Put the ski ramp on the front and put the cats on the angle deck. Best of both worlds.

a reply to: anzha


Really looks like a clone. Probably be better than the original but a clone none the less.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

Personal hunch is the 3rd will be as well. It's possible the 4th too, but less likely.

The Chinese are learning by doing, so it will take time and require some conservativism in design just to NOT muck up things.

A little editorial perspective on the whole Chinese carrier thing from one of my favorite YouTube channels:

a reply to: Sammamishman

The snark was...amusing for a bit. Not sure I could handle that for a prolonged number of episodes though.

It appears the island has been added to the new carrier:

china-defense.blogspot.com...

I think people are in for a rude shock sooner than they think with the Chinese aircraft carriers. They will be catapult equipped sooner than people think. They're already modifying J15s with launch bars on the nose gear.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Another progress update on the Chinese carrier:

china-defense.blogspot.com...

China has stepped up development of Catapult-Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) operations for its carriers, with the appearance of a Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark carrier-borne fighter with CATOBAR apparatus and continued construction of supporting land-based infrastructure.

In mid-September photos surfaced online of a J-15 with what appears to be a catapult launch bar on its nose wheel. These are used to couple the aircraft to the catapult of the carrier during the launch sequence, and would be the latest indication that China’s rumored third aircraft carrier will utilize the CATOBAR system of aircraft launch and recovery.

It is not clear whether this aircraft is a new-build prototype for the CATOBAR J-15, or one of the six original J-15 prototypes modified with a new nose wheel. Also noteworthy is that this J-15 is powered by the indigenous Shenyang-Liming WS-10 Taihang turbofan. Although already in widespread use with China’s land-based J-11 fighters, the Chinese engine has never gone to sea during trials and operations on China’s current sole aircraft carrier, Liaoning.

news.usni.org...


I suspect the 4th carrier will be catobar, probably with EMALS or equivalent.

a reply to: anzha

I'm starting to be convinced that EMALS is a dead end, an answer in search of a question. Yes, it nets you big gains in efficiency over a steam catapult, but it's taken years and billions for the USN to get to the barely-functional prototypes on the Ford.

Steam cats OTOH, are an example of flintstones technology that might be a PITA to maintain, but gets the job done reliably under even the most adverse of circumstances, efficiency be damned. In any case, it's not that hard to add a hundred or so extra MW of output to the compact, higher-power density Russian-style reactors that I'm sure the Chinese navy are are using.

My money is that the Chinese have the sense to steer clear of EMALS and produce a series of Forrestal-size Varyag derivatives with a steam CATOBAR setup. They won't be as flashy as the Ford's, but they'll give the PLAN 9/10th's of the Ford's capabilities for 1/3rd the pricetag.