China adds first homemade aircraft carrier to its fleet.

[Deleted]

China's Homemade Aircraft Carrier Becomes Second in Xi's Fleet, next to the refurbished Russian carrier.
The aircraft carrier program lies at the heart of China’s effort to build a “blue water” navy capable of projecting power beyond the country’s coast and protecting increasingly far-flung interests.


Not close to the US' 11 carriers yet, but they are no doubt going to expand further.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...second-overall

[callipygoustp]

"homemade aircraft carrier" kind of makes it sound like the aircraft carrier was put together in someone's kitchen.

[Deleted]

"homemade aircraft carrier" kind of makes it sound like the aircraft carrier was put together in someone's kitchen.

And they stole the "recipe"

[callipygoustp]

And they stole the "recipe"

Bastards! It had been a family secret for generations.

[Kellhound]

Its not really added yet, it was just launched, it still needs to be fitted out and commissioned (around 2020). At that point it will still be less capable of air operations than the Forrestal Class carriers of 1955.

[Azadina]

Why does it have a curved ramp like that?

[Deleted]

Why does it have a curved ramp like that?

Just like the Russian and British carriers, the flight deck has a curved deck to give the planes an upward motion on take-off.
I believe they are shorter than the US carriers and make up for this with such a ramp.

[Skroe]

Why does it have a curved ramp like that?

It's a ski-jump. Ski-jump are used on one type of aircraft carriers (STOBAR, short take off but arrested recovery), the other major type being catapult-assisted, or CATOBAR, to get aircraft airborne.

With a ski-jump, you need to just have the ramp pretty much, and a carrier-capable aircraft (like the Su-33) able to launching from that length and using the ski-jump. From a ship design perspective, it is a far lower barrier for entry for would-be carrier builders (and users) than catapult launches.

Historic catapult launches utilize complicated steam and hydraulic systems. They're heavy and complex. The US has been building them for nearly 70 years, so they have a really mature design on the Nimitz (and are replacing it with an electromagnetic launch system in the Ford class which allows for more variable aircraft weights), but for any country getting started with a domestic carrier, catapults are a huge technical hurdle, one sidestepped by building a ski-jump.

Historically the US gifted our launch technology to the French (our F/A-18s are compatible with their carrier, the Charles De Gaulle) and in the last few years, India. We've also been willing to share the technology with the UK. The UK considered building the new Queen Elisabeth class with catapults, but decided to make it a ski-jump, like their prior carriers, in an incredibly stupid and short sighted decision to save a $1.5 billion.




Russia, which designed the Kuzentsov-class that this new carrier is based off of (just like China's first carrier, the Lionlang) experimented with catapult technology for a flat-deck carrier, but never implimented it. It is believed China does want to go eventually to catapult-assist launch, perhaps in their third or four carrier, an all new domestic design. They say they want to do electromagnetic launch, but steam is more likely.

The advantage of Ski-Jump is that it makes building and maintaining a carrier far easier.

The disadvantage of ski-jump is that any aircraft using it must carry less armament and less fuel in order to make take off weight. Also US Nimitz and Ford class CATOBAR carriers have 4 catapults (2 bow, 2 angle deck), that allow for a high rate of launches, compared to STOBAR, which has two launch points at the bow.

(Chinese carrier flight deck with two aircraft ready to launch)



(Nimitz class carrier, 3 F/A-18s launching)






The most important thing about this is that China successfully reverse engineered and modified the soviet design, and built their own in a few years. This pushes Russia further down the totem-pole of Asian-continent military powers. They've talked about building another carrier for 25 years. They aren't close to actually doing it. And China did in 6.

From a military perspective, it changes basically nothing.

[Puupi]

It will still take years before that carrier is in use. They just made it a floating construction site right now.

[Allybeboba]

Welcome to the 20th century China!

[Shakadam]

It's a ski-jump. Ski-jump are used on one type of aircraft carriers (STOBAR, short take off but arrested recovery), the other major type being catapult-assisted, or CATOBAR, to get aircraft airborne.

With a ski-jump, you need to just have the ramp pretty much, and a carrier-capable aircraft (like the Su-33) able to launching from that length and using the ski-jump. From a ship design perspective, it is a far lower barrier for entry for would-be carrier builders (and users) than catapult launches.

Historic catapult launches utilize complicated steam and hydraulic systems. They're heavy and complex. The US has been building them for nearly 70 years, so they have a really mature design on the Nimitz (and are replacing it with an electromagnetic launch system in the Ford class which allows for more variable aircraft weights), but for any country getting started with a domestic carrier, catapults are a huge technical hurdle, one sidestepped by building a ski-jump.

Historically the US gifted our launch technology to the French (our F/A-18s are compatible with their carrier, the Charles De Gaulle) and in the last few years, India. We've also been willing to share the technology with the UK. The UK considered building the new Queen Elisabeth class with catapults, but decided to make it a ski-jump, like their prior carriers, in an incredibly stupid and short sighted decision to save a $1.5 billion.

Russia, which designed the Kuzentsov-class that this new carrier is based off of (just like China's first carrier, the Lionlang) experimented with catapult technology for a flat-deck carrier, but never implimented it. It is believed China does want to go eventually to catapult-assist launch, perhaps in their third or four carrier, an all new domestic design. They say they want to do electromagnetic launch, but steam is more likely.

The advantage of Ski-Jump is that it makes building and maintaining a carrier far easier.

The disadvantage of ski-jump is that any aircraft using it must carry less armament and less fuel in order to make take off weight. Also US Nimitz and Ford class CATOBAR carriers have 4 catapults (2 bow, 2 angle deck), that allow for a high rate of launches, compared to STOBAR, which has two launch points at the bow.

The most important thing about this is that China successfully reverse engineered and modified the soviet design, and built their own in a few years. This pushes Russia further down the totem-pole of Asian-continent military powers. They've talked about building another carrier for 25 years. They aren't close to actually doing it. And China did in 6.

From a military perspective, it changes basically nothing.

Isn't one argument for a STOBAR design also that it reduces the cost of launching aircraft? I.e. a steam catapult causes more wear on an airframe so the aircraft have to be retired earlier?

I heard something about this also being one of the reasons for developing the electromagnetic catapult system?

[Skroe]

Isn't one argument for a STOBAR design also that it reduces the cost of launching aircraft? I.e. a steam catapult causes more wear on an airframe so the aircraft have to be retired earlier?

I heard something about this also being one of the reasons for developing the electromagnetic catapult system?

It's less stress on the air frame, but that's a life-of-the-aircraft concern. It is a motiviation behind EMLS. However the larger motivation behind that is

1) Take advantage of the Ford class's enormous electrical generating capacity (4x that of the Nimitz)
2) Allow the ship not to have the bulky hydraulics and have more room for aircraft / simpler internal design
3) Require less maintenance
4) Allow the catapult to be throttled down to launch lighter-weight aircraft (namely drones).

[Deleted]

Welcome to the 20th century China!

They are late to the party, yes.
But they never had the knowhow, the financial means nor the ambitions before recent times.

There was a time where the US had a laughable military and navy too, lagging way behind that of world power, now a 100 years later they are the main power themselves.

[caervek]

[I]China's Homemade Aircraft Carrier Becomes Second in Xi's Fleet, next to the refurbished Russian carrier.

Just a slight correction here, the first carrier isn't a refurbished Russian carrier, it's a Chinese carrier built on the hull of an unfinished Ukrainian aviation cruiser. The new one is a modified version of the same Chinese design.

By comparison India's INS Vikramaditya is a refurbished/modified Russian aircraft carrier.

[Puupi]

They are late to the party, yes.
But they never had the knowhow, the financial means nor the ambitions before recent times.

They didn't have a reason to have aircraft carriers.

[caervek]

The UK considered building the new Queen Elisabeth class with catapults, but decided to make it a ski-jump, like their prior carriers, in an incredibly stupid and short sighted decision to save a $1.5 billion.

I think you've got a bit mixed up there, the UK government chose to buy the F-35B and make the QE class STOVL instead of buying the Naval variant of our own Typhoon fighter and making the carriers STOBAR. Then a decade later the new UK government declared that it would switch to the F-35C to save money and make the carriers CATOBAR, then they realised that the carriers weren't nuclear powered (another fail) and so doing that would actually increase costs so abandoned the idea.

For anyone wondering STOVL means that the planes launch off a ski jump then return and land vertically instead of being caught on a cable.

[prwraith]

I worry about China increasing their military strength because they're ultimately pretty irresponsible. I mean the US is arrogant as fuck, but we don't have a system of public suppression in place. We allow journalist to print things critical of the administration, we don't have nearly as many human rights violations, nor as many environmental violations.

I worry about a country this irresponsible towards their own people projecting power anywhere.

[Teph]

The nimitz and ford class just look way cooler. Go home with your silly looking ships.

[xenogear3]

I thought Aircraft Carrier was invented and used in World War 2, 70 years ago.

Why is big news now?
fake news?

[Puupi]

I thought Aircraft Carrier was invented and used in World War 2, 70 years ago.

They were already used in WW1.