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China's first aircraft carrier begins sea trials


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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/chinas-aircraft-c...-051816797.html

"At best, it could makes some waves in the South China Sea and intimidate the poorly equipped navies of Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines," said Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies.

Intimation tactic towards its neighbors in the future?

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Chinese have a lot to learn, but I'll bet they get there! There has been a very real determination in China for many years for them to have an aircraft carrier, it's considered to be a real status symbol. They have a full size mock up on land that they have been using for flight deck training for a good while now. It might take another twelve months or so for this ship to become operational, but become operational it will!

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Wonder if they have worked out its a good idea to design it so the aircraft you are intending to buy can operate from it ok? If they have then maybe they could do a secondment of their procurement personnel to our MOD?

Meiouw - I am off to lap at a saucer of milk now

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Wonder if they have worked out its a good idea to design it so the aircraft you are intending to buy can operate from it ok? If they have then maybe they could do a secondment of their procurement personnel to our MOD?

Meiouw - I am off to lap at a saucer of milk now

Of course, if it happens the other way round then we'll be safe from China for a long long time to come!

:D

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Seeing the bullying they been doing in the south china sea with Vietnam, Philippines and others as of late in that area it should be a good bet that they will use it as a big stick to get their way there. Even with the carrier groups and the layers of defenses the USN has they realize how vulnerable they are. China has a long way to go to get caught up to the US but does not mean they want to. It maybe that they want enough to control their little corner of the world.

Some how l think the Chinese are going the same path as the Imperial Japan did in the 40s. Personally l just have this feeling that everyone from India to Australia will be embroiled in a war in the near future

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And just where will our own Navy be at the time China is flexing its muscles. Our govenment of the day will want to commit and support our allies in the region, but our dwindling capability will be gone/impotent or at best ineffective.

We are currently on the process of burying our heads in the sand and hoping the potential threat to world trade and supply will not materialise tomorrow,

but these sorts of attitudes to potential threats just always come back and bite us

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Personally l just have this feeling that everyone from India to Australia will be embroiled in a war in the near future

Sounds quite a pessimistic view of the future ! More so as for some countries in the region China is the most important business partner. Australia at war with its best customer ? Can't really see the logic for such a situation...

Threats to world trade from China ? China's prosperity depends heavily on world trade ! They'd be the first to be interested in free commercial routes.

It's clear that China is slowly trying to grow its political influence in parallel to the growth of their economic influence, and this also involves increasing the military power projection capabilities in their area. In a sense is a repetition of what the US did in the late XIX century in the caribbean and then in latin america. Naval aviation is a big part of this and China has tried for a long time to have a carrier. Now they are almost getting there, and will sure get there. A good reason to get there is that China's main local competitor already has one and has had carriers for a long time. Not the USN, but India !

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For some reason, China, who builds commercial ships in quantity, has bought the hull of an old Soviet era carrier. One would have thought that it was the electronics what they couldn't make, but the hull? I wonder if the materials involved in the construction of a big warships are beyond China's present capabilities... maybe the same happened in the protracted process of "copying" the R-33 (?) engines from the Su-27s? something in the Chinese metal alloys?

Anyway, just one carrier makes a nice target, not a power-projection tool... especially an ex-Soviet one, whose design philosophy is very different from Westerns' true pure carriers. Though of course they might have got rid of all the SSMs and turned it into a pure carrier themselves.

Besides, it is true the RN was there a long time ago, but... where she is now?

Just food for thought,

Fernando

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Fernando, my understanding from what I've heard and read is that China wanted the old soviet carrier to try and understand the various details of the design, especially the layout of the internal spaces and the philosophy of systems placement. As they have no experience of carriers at all and had to start from scratch, buying an existing ship was found the best solution to shorten the development of any solution required and allow them to start practice operations. I would expect China to start develop their own carrier designs at some point after enough experience has been accumulated with this one. It will then be interesting to see if they will go for the soviet hybrid carrier/cruiser design or for the pure carrier concept.

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First they bought ex RAN HMAS Melbourne, ostensibly for her scrapping but they dismantled her piece by piece and studied her construction as they did so.

Then they bought 2 ex Russian Kiev-class, and studied them. Then they built 2 mockups, one a concrete clone that resembles a Nimitz class in layout, based in a lake, and another a replica of a Kuznetsov flight deck and island, on top of a building (big building).

They will build their own carrier soon enough, don't doubt it. AFAIK they have removed the vertical missile launchers from Varyag as was mentioned above. I do believe they will use her for training purposes, initally, but remember this is also a country that builds it's own Su-27 clones, Su-33s are not that far away.

Should also be an interesting counterfoil to Japan's helicopter/harrier COUGH COUGH carrier er I mean destroyer DDH.......

Plenty more interesting reading here....

http://www.varyagworld.com/

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Then they built 2 mockups, one a concrete clone that resembles a Nimitz class in layout, based in a lake

This one......

china%20carrier_01.jpg

OK - I've done a bit of PS'ing....... :o

It looks like this really........

china%20carrier_02.jpg

It looks more like Kuznetsov than Nimitz - and it is in a large educational park in Shanghai - we were told that it was to 'educate' the Chinese youth about what a carrier looks like, rather than being a testbed for the PLAN.

But it is an expensive educational toy!!! :analintruder:

More photos from the Oriental Green Boat Park here

Su-33s are not that far away.

The J-15 (Su-33 clone) is already in flight testing....

Ken

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Dragon is the first with a J-15 kit. http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com/dmlusa/prodd.asp?pid=DRA4627

It's just the 1/144th Su37 kit with a tail hook added by the looks of it.

Paul Harrison

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And just where will our own Navy be at the time China is flexing its muscles. Our govenment of the day will want to commit and support our allies in the region, but our dwindling capability will be gone/impotent or at best ineffective.

We are currently on the process of burying our heads in the sand and hoping the potential threat to world trade and supply will not materialise tomorrow,

but these sorts of attitudes to potential threats just always come back and bite us

We will be busy having meetings,doing risk assesments and consulting health and safety,then we will invite the Chinese round for a cup of tea and discuss Chinas inner feelings and try and get them to open up.Then we will blame ourselves and it will all end up being our fault.

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We will be busy having meetings,doing risk assesments and consulting health and safety,then we will invite the Chinese round for a cup of tea and discuss Chinas inner feelings and try and get them to open up.Then we will blame ourselves and it will all end up being our fault.

Ayup All...

The easiest thing to do to China if they get uppity is send a Traf Class out, and do, well, a Belgrano. Lets face it, our Economies may be on the verge of Collapse, but That means that they've still got MOST to lose, if we don't buy any of their stuff... There's no NEED for agression.

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Is it possible that the concrete verion of the aircraft carrier is able to be used as a deck landing, catapult launch training device.

I am aware that China does have a training facility in situ at some airfield which simulates an aircraft carrier deck layout. Su-33 trials for deck landings are being carried out.

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Is it possible that the concrete verion of the aircraft carrier is able to be used as a deck landing, catapult launch training device.

I doubt it......

It's in a public park

It has no arrestor gear nor catapults

It is fixed in place - it isn't afloat and can't be turned into wind.

It is just a giant visitor attraction......... this is a map of the Oriental Green Boat Park....

day04_002.jpg

Aft 'flight deck'.....

day04_017.jpg

Front end - with 'catapult shuttle' and 'blast deflector' - both dummies...

day04_014.jpg

Ken

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It looks like a "1984" version of the history of the PLA-Navy... they have never had an operational carrier, but now they already have a suitably placed turistical "memorial", just like the USS Intrepid.

Looks pretty obvious that, without being able to turn into the wind, no aircraft operations can be made. No to say that it lacks the proper clearance to private property you see even in airports... a failed launch would send the machine straight into a living complex.

It looks impressive indeed, though.

Fernando

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