Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #1

miketheterrible wrote:Not likely. Hence why they are trying to convince the Russians for sale of 6 engines to each Su-35 rather than traditional 4.

how would they get off those carriers even if they were cleared to recover on them?

hoom wrote:

how would they get off those carriers even if they were cleared to recover on them?

That was apparently recently covered in Military Acceptance episode on K: (can't find the direct quote for some reason) Russian pilot visiting a CV back in 04 or something had actually suggested testing it to US crew, Su-33 weight is well within US arrestor limit & he believed could get enough speed despite no ski-jump by starting the takeoff run from the back of the carrier.

Speaking of which

The 2 Big Reasons Why Russia's Only Aircraft Carrier is Having So Many Problems

Dave Majumdar
December 6, 2016



The Russian Navy has lost two carrier-based fighters onboard its sole remaining carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the span of only a few weeks. On both occasions, technical problems with Kuznetsov’s arresting gear played a central role in the accidents—which have cost the Kremlin a Mikoyan MiG-29KUBR Fulcrum-D and a Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D. While Kuznetsov’s hardware is old, the bigger issue is Russia’s relative lack of experience in naval aviation and insufficient proficiency with launching and recovering combat aircraft onboard a carrier at sea.

In the case of the first crash on Nov.14—where a MiG-29KUBR ran out of fuel and crashed into the Mediterranean—the aircraft was orbiting while deck crews attempted to fix a broken arresting cable that had become entangled with one or the three remaining wires. The cable had snapped when another MiG-29KR had landed safely onboard Kuznetsov—however, that aircraft had caught the fourth and last cable on deck. Meanwhile, the second crash on Dec. 5—this time involving a Su-33 Flanker—was also due to a snapped arresting gear cable.

Naval aviation is an inherently dangerous business, but many of Russia’s naval aviation mishaps are due to a lack of experience and proficiency in carrier-based operations. While some of the Russian Navy’s problems can be attributed to the elderly Kuznetsov’s many inherent flaws, the Russians have not developed the proper procedures or practices to operate carrier-borne aircraft safely at sea.

Kuznetsov—commissioned on Dec. 25, 1990—is an older ship, but the vessel’s age is not the real issue. There are a good number of U.S. Navy carriers that are far older than Kuznetsov that operate perfectly well. Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln—are all older than the Russian ship. Moreover, USS Enterprise (CVN-65)—which was retired on Dec. 1, 2012, after more than 50 years in service—was just as ready to launch and recover aircraft on the day she was pulled out of service as she was the day she was first deployed in 1962.

The reason the U.S. Navy can operate a carrier for more than half a century is because the service maintains the material condition of its ships and has superbly trained crews. The Russians—especially over the past 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union—have not always properly maintained Kuznetsov. Nor has Kuznetsov’s crew been given enough of a chance to gain the requisite proficiency to safely conduct carrier operations at sea.

Cables break—it happens even onboard the U.S. Navy’s fleet of supercarriers. Indeed, one particular incident I recall was when an old acquaintance of mine was nearly killed when a cable snapped onboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) in 2005. His Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet fell into the water and the ship nearly ran him and his weapons systems officer over. Meanwhile, there was chaos onboard Kitty Hawk as the ends of the cable thrashed across the flight deck—damaging aircraft and injuring crew members. Accidents happen—but a broken cable leading to a mishap is exceedingly rare onboard U.S. Navy carriers. Two accidents in less than three weeks is indicative of serious problems onboard.

“Cables separate/break at some interval—and that's big news usually leading to injury, death or mishap. The cable system breaking does happen regularly and they usually just remove it and work with less wires—two or three now with the new design,” one senior naval aviator told me. “The bottom line is that it's very rare, sometimes preventable (settings, maintenance, etc.) and it’s big news when it happens.”

Meanwhile, the earlier loss of the MiG-29KUBR is indicative of poor decision making on the part of the Russian commander—who should probably have diverted the jet to a shore base in Syria. U.S. Navy carriers—when operating close to shore—will designate divert airfields in case there is a serious emergency where the ship cannot recover its aircraft. Indeed, the carrier usually launches recovery tankers—aerial-refueling-configured Super Hornets—to ensure that jets have enough fuel to operate safely. While Kuznetsov does not have the ability to launch a tanker—or even buddy-refueller configured fighters—the Russians should have designated a divert field for emergencies.

“When the carrier and air wing team first put to sea they are considered to be in divert ops until they pass their Combat Operations Efficiency (COE) evaluation, which is also called ‘blue water certification.’  We also use divert ops if there is an engineering casualty on the carrier, for example if we’re only using one reactor… whether by necessity or by choice,” another senior U.S. naval aviator told me. “Typically, a ship-based limitation that could put the recovery of fixed-wing aircraft at risk leads to a divert ops situation, so we’d need to be in relatively close proximity to land—say, 200 nautical miles or so.”

As a force designed to project American power across the globe, the U.S. Navy has designed its procedures to enable safe carrier operations even in the middle of the ocean—far from any land bases.  “Blue water ops enable the carrier and air wing to conduct flight operations anywhere, anytime,” the second naval aviator said. “We utilize tankers to provide the required gas — ‘front side’ gas to give us more to train with, with ‘back side’ gas available as required when an aircraft’s fuel state gets low.”

Ultimately, it is not the age of its ships or the capabilities of its hardware that makes the U.S. Navy the globe-spanning titan that it is. It is the quality of its training and the soundness of its procedures that make the service what it is. Russia has long way to go before it ever comes close to matching American naval aviation prowess.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-2-big-reasons-why-russias-only-aircraft-carrier-having-18643

KiloGolf wrote:

The 2 Big Reasons Why Russia's Only Aircraft Carrier is Having So Many Problems

Dave Majumdar
December 6, 2016



The Russian Navy has lost two carrier-based fighters onboard its sole remaining carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the span of only a few weeks. On both occasions, technical problems with Kuznetsov’s arresting gear played a central role in the accidents—which have cost the Kremlin a Mikoyan MiG-29KUBR Fulcrum-D and a Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D. While Kuznetsov’s hardware is old, the bigger issue is Russia’s relative lack of experience in naval aviation and insufficient proficiency with launching and recovering combat aircraft onboard a carrier at sea.

In the case of the first crash on Nov.14—where a MiG-29KUBR ran out of fuel and crashed into the Mediterranean—the aircraft was orbiting while deck crews attempted to fix a broken arresting cable that had become entangled with one or the three remaining wires. The cable had snapped when another MiG-29KR had landed safely onboard Kuznetsov—however, that aircraft had caught the fourth and last cable on deck. Meanwhile, the second crash on Dec. 5—this time involving a Su-33 Flanker—was also due to a snapped arresting gear cable.

Naval aviation is an inherently dangerous business, but many of Russia’s naval aviation mishaps are due to a lack of experience and proficiency in carrier-based operations. While some of the Russian Navy’s problems can be attributed to the elderly Kuznetsov’s many inherent flaws, the Russians have not developed the proper procedures or practices to operate carrier-borne aircraft safely at sea.

Kuznetsov—commissioned on Dec. 25, 1990—is an older ship, but the vessel’s age is not the real issue. There are a good number of U.S. Navy carriers that are far older than Kuznetsov that operate perfectly well. Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln—are all older than the Russian ship. Moreover, USS Enterprise (CVN-65)—which was retired on Dec. 1, 2012, after more than 50 years in service—was just as ready to launch and recover aircraft on the day she was pulled out of service as she was the day she was first deployed in 1962.

The reason the U.S. Navy can operate a carrier for more than half a century is because the service maintains the material condition of its ships and has superbly trained crews. The Russians—especially over the past 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union—have not always properly maintained Kuznetsov. Nor has Kuznetsov’s crew been given enough of a chance to gain the requisite proficiency to safely conduct carrier operations at sea.

Cables break—it happens even onboard the U.S. Navy’s fleet of supercarriers. Indeed, one particular incident I recall was when an old acquaintance of mine was nearly killed when a cable snapped onboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) in 2005. His Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet fell into the water and the ship nearly ran him and his weapons systems officer over. Meanwhile, there was chaos onboard Kitty Hawk as the ends of the cable thrashed across the flight deck—damaging aircraft and injuring crew members. Accidents happen—but a broken cable leading to a mishap is exceedingly rare onboard U.S. Navy carriers. Two accidents in less than three weeks is indicative of serious problems onboard.

“Cables separate/break at some interval—and that's big news usually leading to injury, death or mishap. The cable system breaking does happen regularly and they usually just remove it and work with less wires—two or three now with the new design,” one senior naval aviator told me. “The bottom line is that it's very rare, sometimes preventable (settings, maintenance, etc.) and it’s big news when it happens.”

Meanwhile, the earlier loss of the MiG-29KUBR is indicative of poor decision making on the part of the Russian commander—who should probably have diverted the jet to a shore base in Syria. U.S. Navy carriers—when operating close to shore—will designate divert airfields in case there is a serious emergency where the ship cannot recover its aircraft. Indeed, the carrier usually launches recovery tankers—aerial-refueling-configured Super Hornets—to ensure that jets have enough fuel to operate safely. While Kuznetsov does not have the ability to launch a tanker—or even buddy-refueller configured fighters—the Russians should have designated a divert field for emergencies.

“When the carrier and air wing team first put to sea they are considered to be in divert ops until they pass their Combat Operations Efficiency (COE) evaluation, which is also called ‘blue water certification.’  We also use divert ops if there is an engineering casualty on the carrier, for example if we’re only using one reactor… whether by necessity or by choice,” another senior U.S. naval aviator told me. “Typically, a ship-based limitation that could put the recovery of fixed-wing aircraft at risk leads to a divert ops situation, so we’d need to be in relatively close proximity to land—say, 200 nautical miles or so.”

As a force designed to project American power across the globe, the U.S. Navy has designed its procedures to enable safe carrier operations even in the middle of the ocean—far from any land bases.  “Blue water ops enable the carrier and air wing to conduct flight operations anywhere, anytime,” the second naval aviator said. “We utilize tankers to provide the required gas — ‘front side’ gas to give us more to train with, with ‘back side’ gas available as required when an aircraft’s fuel state gets low.”

Ultimately, it is not the age of its ships or the capabilities of its hardware that makes the U.S. Navy the globe-spanning titan that it is. It is the quality of its training and the soundness of its procedures that make the service what it is. Russia has long way to go before it ever comes close to matching American naval aviation prowess.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-2-big-reasons-why-russias-only-aircraft-carrier-having-18643

SeigSoloyvov wrote:
Honestly, I would have refused to sell them any SU-35's the defense agency isn't stupid they know the second they hand it over the tech will get stolen. Russia must be rather desperate for cash because they used to refuse china access to the new good toys because of this very reason now all of a sudden they are cool with it?.

Now if they sell China Armata's/S-400's/T-50's that will be the single biggest blunder of they have ever made.

KiloGolf wrote:

This got me thinking. Wouldn't thrust vectoring actually help an Su-33 taking off with more load?
Maybe this (below) wasn't such a bad idea after all:

TheArmenian wrote:https://www.rt.com/news/369472-us-military-fighter-jet-crashes/

And another F-18 Hornet crashes.
This the fourth in a short period of time.
This is getting really embarrassing, loosing so many aircraft......

Whoops, wrong thread.
I forgot this is "The bash the Kuznetsov thread" where pro-NATO trolls have a duty to spill their daily quota of venom.

KiloGolf wrote:

TheArmenian wrote:https://www.rt.com/news/369472-us-military-fighter-jet-crashes/

And another F-18 Hornet crashes.
This the fourth in a short period of time.
This is getting really embarrassing, loosing so many aircraft......

Whoops, wrong thread.
I forgot this is "The bash the Kuznetsov thread" where pro-NATO trolls have a duty to spill their daily quota of venom.

Compare the size of the two fleets and you have an answer. It's not embarrassing at all.
#cablegate is embarrassing indeed, for reasons already outlined.

TheArmenian wrote:https://www.rt.com/news/369472-us-military-fighter-jet-crashes/

And another F-18 Hornet crashes.
This the fourth in a short period of time.
This is getting really embarrassing, loosing so many aircraft......

Whoops, wrong thread.
I forgot this is "The bash the Kuznetsov thread" where pro-NATO trolls have a duty to spill their daily quota of venom.

KiloGolf wrote:

hoom wrote:

how would they get off those carriers even if they were cleared to recover on them?

That was apparently recently covered in Military Acceptance episode on K: (can't find the direct quote for some reason) Russian pilot visiting a CV back in 04 or something had actually suggested testing it to US crew, Su-33 weight is well within US arrestor limit & he believed could get enough speed despite no ski-jump by starting the takeoff run from the back of the carrier.

All that would be too risky for USN to allow. What if a pilot &/ plane  is lost? Whose fault would it be? Cross-decking was done with the RN & the FN but compared with those fighters, the Su-33 is just too heavy w/o CAT assisted takeoff. http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/military/su33/lth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II_in_UK_service#/media/File:F-4J_F-4K_CV-62_NAN6-75.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II_in_UK_service#Specifications_.28F-4M.29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale#Specifications
I use wikipedia for ease of reference, not because I trust it more than the other sites. In this case, even if the info. isn't 100% correct it's clear that those jets r a lot lighter!

One of the planes DID land in Syria proper, the other one notified it wouldn't be able to make it.

Su-33 is just too heavy w/o CAT assisted takeoff.

hoom wrote:K may be going into Tartus.
Apparently PtG has entered & K photographed not far off

Kinda surprised that they would both go in there simultaneously, its not exactly the biggest of ports.

hoom wrote:

One of the planes DID land in Syria proper, the other one notified it wouldn't be able to make it.

Interesting, where is that from?

Su-33 is just too heavy w/o CAT assisted takeoff.

I'd take Victor Pugachevs' word for it that there was enough length but yes US CV guys were too scared.

KiloGolf wrote:Is the K being towed again?
Check this video: https://twitter.com/MIG29_/status/806859842501672960

A1RMAN wrote:If it's near port - of course.

Russia's Sad, Smokey Carrier Doesn't Seem to Be Doing Much of Anything

Kyle Mizokami
Dec 7, 2016



Russia's only and therefore mightiest carrier by default, the Admiral Kuznetsov, transited the Mediterranean last month to great controversy. The ship was accused—rightly so—of moving into position to support the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Aircraft from the carrier were spotted over Aleppo the first day it began air operations over Syria.

Since then Kuznetsov has lost two of fifteen fighters of its assigned air wing to accidents, and flight operations have been suspended at least once. A Russian television news report shot on the carrier itself attempts to portray the ship as a hive of activity but raises more questions than it answers.

Let's look at Kuznetsov's flight deck. There are only a handful of aircraft on deck in any particular shot, and in some shots there are no planes at all. Many of the airplanes are completely unarmed, their wings devoid of missiles and bombs. In still other shots the Kuznetsov's helicopters—Kamov Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopters—are tied down on the middle of the flight deck in broad daylight, making fixed-wing air operations impossible.



Almost all of the footage is of the carrier's nine remaining Su-33 Flanker air superiority fighters. The Flankers were recently upgraded with a navigation and targeting system designed to deliver unguided bombs with precision. Regardless, no actual air-to-ground weapons are shown on any of the Flankers. The Flankers are instead shown equipped with R-27 "Alamo" air-to-air missiles that are useless in a bombing campaign. The actual workhorses of Kuznetsov's air campaign, the remaining three MiG-29Ks, are only seen a handful of times.

Bombs or any sort of air-to-ground ordnance at all are shown just three times. In the first instance, what appear to be 500 kilogram unguided bombs are being wheeled across the flight deck. Where those bombs are really going is anyone's guess, since the news report doesn't show them being attached to an airplane. In the second and third instances, MiG-29K fighters are seen equipped with a KAB-500Kr-F electro-optical bomb. The MiGs are shown in the air but there's no sign of any air-to-ground ordnance.

What does all this mean? Kuznetsov just doesn't look very busy. Contrary to what the news report meant to show, there's very little evidence the carrier is actually involved in a bombing campaign. Late last month, the bulk of the carrier's air wing was sighted at Humaymim Air Base in Syria. As one senior military officer told Jane's, "We don't think the Russians are flying as many sorties off their carrier as they would want the world to think." This video makes that seem all the more likely.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24196/admiral-kuznetsov-lack-of-activity/

Giulio wrote:An US carrier's catapult could launch much heavier aircrafts than a Su-33. (And, I think that the Su-33's landing gear isn't physically compatible with an US catapult).
A Su-33 could takeoff from an US aircraft carrier without catapult.
But above all, I really think that the landing on a NATO aircraft carrier (or NATO country) it is not possible for Russian pilots, because it would mean to deliver Russian military technology in foreign hands and this could be treason.
(In the Malvinas/Falkland war a British Harrier did an emergency vertical landing on the first ship the pilot found on the sea, but that was a ship of an allied country, Spanish if I correctly remember).

KiloGolf wrote:

A1RMAN wrote:If it's near port - of course.

In Kotemore's pics above it was the same distance without the tugs.
Lets hope it didn't break down again. I wouldn't be surprised if it did, as it's unusual to bring it that close to the coast. My understanding is that Tartus port can't handle a ship of that size.