China's Second Aircraft Carrier has Begun Sea Trials

www.81.cn...

The CHinese have announced, and shown on TV, their second aircraft carrier, sometimes called the Shandong, has started sea trials. This is one of the first steps in getting a ship accepted and placed into service with any fleet, or in this case, the People's Liberation Army Navy.

The Shandong, while derived from the Kuznetsov/Varyag class, has significant upgrades. What those are remain to be seen. Rumors were the Shandong had EMALS catapults. Imagery of the deck did not appear to have those built in, but the imagery is not the best quality and it would be in the chinese interests to obscure capabilities. The Shandong is not a nuclear powered carrier.

The Shandong is the first domestically built carrier for the Chinese. They have already begun the construction of their second indigenously built carrier and it is rumored to be new design. It is not being built at the Dalian shipyards. It will be interesting to see if the Chinese start a new carrier at Dalian and what design it will be.

I drive a Shandong bulldozer the size of new york city....cool

but as a pilot....we say no to inclined ramps......that means they have to try to make up forsomething.........maybe a slight incline but dang....gonna be a splat there...that how life works.......gonna be a splat, then a splash

a reply to: anzha

I read somewhere that the construction time for this carrier was two years. The U.S. carriers, apparently, are five and a half years. If accurate, what kind of quality/capability is missing from the Chinese carriers?

a reply to: anzha

Congrats China!

Welcome to the 20th Century!


Oh..... we are in the 21st now aren't we?

a reply to: anzha

Whats the deal with the antiquated inclined ramp?

Cant China build or implement a steam-powered catapult system that does what it says on the tin? LoL

I will now tell ya about shandongs steel....shandong is a family.....a huge city also and a steel monster and makes most of the undercarriage for caterpiller too.......

Caterpiller too

my dozer has to use trucker tarp straps to keep the doors closed since the screws in the locks strip out letting the doors go wild tearin stuff up after 100 hours on the new machine


locktite won't help....

so China.....china ....oh dang china.......your metal....she's a no gooda

a reply to: andy06shake

Just about everyone that builds carriers built STOBAR carriers. They're cheaper and faster to build, cheaper to maintain, and require smaller crews.

If they build their ships the same way they build all that cheap garbage they sell on Amazon this thing will rust through and sink in a few years.

originally posted by: andy06shake
Whats the deal with the antiquated inclined ramp?

Different carrier philosophies. The Chinese are copying the UK, like the Russia and and a bunch of other navies. It's not "antiquated".

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: anzha

I read somewhere that the construction time for this carrier was two years. The U.S. carriers, apparently, are five and a half years. If accurate, what kind of quality/capability is missing from the Chinese carriers?

The ability to wage war.

Ohhh, a whole carrier?

a reply to: Zaphod58

I imagine the future lies with electromagnetic launch catapults really.

There are limitations and drawbacks to STOBAR carriers like launching into the wind being a potential problem and only really working with aircraft that have a high thrust to weight ratio.

CATOBAR is the more costly system but provides greater flexibility in carrier operations, hence the better if not the cost-effective system.

My own nations new carriers will be STOBAR classified, my opinion is through that it will somewhat gimp the vessels capabilities.

a reply to: paraphi

Aye, its great to save money but the pay off is in aircraft type and capability.

a reply to: andy06shake

Actually, they're STOVL. They don't have arresting gear.

There are pluses and minuses for all three types of carrier designs. CATOBAR can launch much heavier aircraft, but lose the catapult and they can't launch at all.

STOBAR/STOVL have to launch aircraft with partial loads of fuel or weapons, but don't depend on what's essentially a single point of failure system.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's a point if the catapult is down nothing gets launched under a CATOBAR system, aside from helicopters of course.

But our carriers are our air bases at sea and should, imho, incorporate as many features/functions as are technically feasible.

End of the day i suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility to build a system that incorporates a way of raising the flight deck into an incline thus afford CATOBAR carriers the luxury of launching some aircraft should the catapults fail.

a reply to: andy06shake

Bigger and stuffed to the gills with the latest and greatest tech isn't always better. Some of the Russian solutions to problems, such as FOD were about as low tech as you get, but are elegant as hell.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Might not always be better but it generally does indeed open up and offer superior flexibility/capability.

Options are good, especially so when in a theatre of war, far away from home in the middle of the sea.

Bet there are not too many carrier commanders out there complaining that their vessels had too many capabilities/options at there disposal.

I get where you are coming from through, service of complicated systems and equipment requires manpower and resources, which are limited on carrier craft and sometimes simplicity is the safer option in an unsafe environment.

Six of one-half dozen of the other really, then again aside from our subs our carriers are indeed our technological showpieces and testbeds.

a reply to: nwtrucker

They (probably) don't have cats.

They don't have nuclear reactors.

They are smaller.

The US building carriers at the rate we do is budget, not tech driven. If this next US budget actually goes through, the rate of carrier construction will be 3 years.

We could probably go a lot faster, but that would be a function of cost and that's not something the US gov and american taxpayer is willing to shoulder the burden for at this time.

a reply to: andy06shake

It depends on your fleet size. We have 10 carriers because we have had at least one in RCOH since the 1970s, and they constantly are out of commission 3-6 months for routine maintenence. It takes 4-5 years to perform RCOH.

The Ford is proving to be a nightmare getting all that new tech to work well. They've had serious problems with the radar, the catapult, the arresting gear, and general electrical issues.

originally posted by: anzha
a reply to: nwtrucker

The US building carriers at the rate we do is budget, not tech driven. If this next US budget actually goes through, the rate of carrier construction will be 3 years.

We could probably go a lot faster, but that would be a function of cost and that's not something the US gov and american taxpayer is willing to shoulder the burden for at this time.

This is an excellent point and something I think is lost on a lot of arm chair generals. Admiral Yamamoto was all too aware of this prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor. An America production capability under a war time production rate is something else entirely from what is seen today.