Discussion continued in this thread to avoid derailing the original 6th-gen fighter thread.
On the topic of 004 - Yankee & Co. mentioned that Fujian was designed with the J-35 operations in mind before blueprint finalization sometime in the mid/late-2010s. However, once the need to operate 6th-gen manned fighters onboard Fujian arises, then adaptability modifications will be needed sometime in the (not so recent) future (i.e. similar to Liaoning during her latest MLU at Dalian to enable J-35 operations).
Speaking of the (concern regarding dimension and flight characteristics of) carrier-based 6th-gen manned fighters around and onboard 004, Yankee & Co. suggested that with the significant advancement of avionics, flight controls and automated landing systems (autoland), compromises involved will not need to be as big.
Some key points from Yankee & Co.'s podcast on what China's next aircraft carrier could be, simply-put:
- Fujian, despite deserving the title of "supercarrier", is too small to be sufficient. 004 and subsequent CVs definitely will be larger.
- There are sayings (source undetermined) where while a 150 thousand-ton supercarrier is likely to have slightly/moderately higher price tag than a 100 thousand-ton supercarrier, it is expected to have the combat effectiveness that is likely to be 1.8 or even 2 times that of the latter (namely, greater cost-effectiveness).
- Nuclear propulsion for future Chinese supercarriers is an unavoidable path (conventional propulsion has pretty much reached its celling for large-sized carrier propulsion with Fujian).
- The number of nuclear reactors onboard the Nimitz-class decided back in the 1960s (two A4Ws per hull) is more of a political (and financial) decision instead of an engineering/technical decision (as initially, they were meant to be powered by four A3Ws per hull).
- China can follow the US with regarding to the development of nuclear-powered supercarriers, but shouldn't do it "to the Tee".
