CV-16, CV-17 STOBAR carrier thread (001/Liaoning, 002/Shandong)

[Blitzo]

I don't recall seeing pictures with all 24 J-15s on the deck at the same time, or even 21 of them. Doesn't mean I didn't miss them if they were shown. They're rare.

I recall some images from May 2023, as well as September 2022 from my own personal folder but I forget if they were released then or even earlier.

Certainly over the last few years we've had pics and videos of CV-16/17 with full airwings of 20+ J-15s

We know that kind of operations happened before and they're capable of. We haven't see any videos that I'm aware of, but Japanese have certainly reported them before, multiple times.

The Chinese carrier program has come a long way. That was the point.

The Chinese carrier program has definitely come a long way, but objectively there does remain a few things we have yet to verify through imagery or third party observation.

The Japanese reports are for when CV-16/17 venture for their Pacific exercises but from pictures those almost certainly are done with a partial airwing.
Personally I think their true sortie rates with a nominal airwing size should be even a bit higher than what we've seen reported so far by the Japanese but they likely haven't gone to the open Pacific with those airwing sizes yet.

 

[asif iqbal]

would love to see CV-16 and CV-17 flanking CV18

all hands on deck

 

[by78]

Weapons elevator.