Chinese aircraft carrier program

Fujian next to a Ford class carrier.

walle83 wrote:

Nice photo showing the two deck layout of the island... the lower row of windows are clearly for operating the ship, while the upper deck is for air operations.

From the side views you can see neither deck goes right around the island, but it certainly seems to be a better solution than having two island structures...

GarryB wrote:

From the side views you can see neither deck goes right around the island, but it certainly seems to be a better solution than having two island structures...

Good to see that you've come around to the idea of a ONE island structure on modern carrier designs.

Good to see that you've come around to the idea of a ONE island structure on modern carrier designs.

I see benefits of both designs, the twin islands means you can optimise the location of both teams of people (one controlling the air group and running deck operations and the other steering the ship and communicating with the other ships in the surface action group).

If one Island means a huge island then I support two tiny islands, but this appears to be a very compact island design, which I like as well.

You can see from the side shot the enormous volume of the Island structure taken by the engine exhausts/smoke stack, so with a nuke you could probably make the Island rather smaller... but this is a clever and tidy looking design.

The flat decks with no ski jump make it look American... be funny if they took the buildings away and there are some huge ass Trebuchets sitting there ready to launch planes...





Just joking... I can't wait to see the first aircraft take off flawlessly... this is a serious step forward for a country with such a long cultural history but such a short history of naval aviation at sea.

Backman wrote:It looks like a hybrid between a US carrier and Soviet carrier. Im not knocking it.

It would have been better to have the deck clear for the unviel.

It was probably pressure to get it launched, its already months behind.

You can clearly see that the hull is based on the Kuznetsov and the Type-002 concept.
A Kuznimitz?  

Great looking carrier design. They are probably hiding those EMALS deliberately
The Island structure is very neat and not much larger than the Ford class and like the Ford it provides for excellent all round visibility.

I wonder what aircraft will go on it. J-15 is a dead end and they need a new plateform. J-31 is said to be the new naval fighter but it is just a prototype aircraft that would need years to be adapted and mastered for carrier use. J-20 is too big.

Maybe mig-35 has a chance since it is a mig-29k with more modern avionics. At least until they come up with a 5th generation plateform.

Much as I would like to see the MiG-35 or Su-33 get the job... these planes were adapted for heavier landings and takeoffs but were not modified for assisted takeoffs AFAIK.

They would need updates to their front wheel to prevent it being ripped off.

Fortunately one of the advantages of EMALS over Steam cats is that it can start off a little slow and then accelerate based on the load it detects during the launch, so no need to set it up for aircraft weight or other features.

With the steam system you had to put information in like the type of aircraft and the weight of fuel it is carrying, as well as its payload weight and type and other factors as well to ensure it can get the aircraft up to take off speed by the time it reaches the end of its stroke.

Pulls too hard and it rips off the front wheel and the plane will most likely end in the water. Doesn't pull hard enough and the plane drops off the end of the deck into the water.

Or worse pulls hard enough to rupture the wings or external fuel tanks being carried and creates a massive fireball that burns till it falls into the water...

With operational cats the aircraft performance no longer needs to be sprite to operate safely so I would go for heavier aircraft just because they should be able to carry more fuel and more weapons... in 5 years time being able to take off and climb to 15km altitude and launch some mach 10 scramjet powered AAMs with flight ranges of 1,000km will make them very potent and capable interceptor fighters...

I wonder if they will go with single engined fighters or stick with twin engines?

A naval variant of the twin engine J-31 (dubbed J-35) made it's first flight in October 2021. A CATOBAR variant of the J-15 is also under development and both these fighters will likely serve on the new Fujian carrier.