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China launches its first locally built aircraft carrier
VIDEO: China Launches First Domestic Aircraft Carrier
China launches its first locally built aircraft carrier
and here's USNI NewsChina has launched its second — but its first locally built — aircraft carrier, just days after being floated off its dry dock, even as the country continues development work on other aspects of its carrier program.
The ceremony to launch the Type 001A carrier took place Wednesday morning, local time, at the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation’s shipyard at Dalian, Liaoning province, in northern China where the ship has been under construction since 2013. It also comes just days after the 68th anniversary of the founding of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN.
The official news website of China's People's Liberation Army said Gen. Fan Changlong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the ceremony, where he was joined by PLAN commander Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong, PLAN Political Commissar Adm. Miao Hua and Hu Wenming, the shipyard’s president.
The carrier, which is rumored but not confirmed to be named Shandong, has now been moved from its dry dock to the adjacent berth, where it will undergo final construction, fitting out and builder’s trials before being commissioned into the PLAN, which is expected to occur sometime in 2019.
The new carrier is based closely on the PLAN’s sole operational aircraft carrier, Liaoning, with an angled flight deck and a ski jump for short takeoff but arrested recovery operations. There are some small variations in the flight deck layout of the new carrier compared to Liaoning, but an analysis of satellite photos of the ship by Defense News shows that the major dimensions remain the same, with an overall length of 1,000 feet and an angled landing section of 655 feet.
The most obvious external difference from the Liaoning would, however, be the reconfiguration of the four phased array radar panels, with those on the new ship facing diagonally outward on both sides of bridge fore and aft. It is still unclear if the new carrier will retain the Type 348 phased array radar of the Liaoning.
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VIDEO: China Launches First Domestic Aircraft Carrier
... skipping due to reaching size limitChina has launched its first domestically built aircraft carrier in a ceremony at a northern Chinese shipyard on Wednesday.
The 50,000-ton Type-001A carrier was launched in a flurry of ticker tape and confetti from its dry dock at the Dalian Shipyard just after 9 A.M. local time on Wednesday (9 P.M. EDT, Tuesday).
“A bottle of champagne was broken on the aircraft carrier as a customary way of blessing the ship,” read a statement from the Chinese National Ministry of Defense.
“After that, the new aircraft carrier was slowly towed out of the dockyard and transferred to the wharf.”
The Type-001A is based on the Kuznetsov-class Russian carrier Liaoning, the incomplete aircraft carrier Beijing bought in 1998, refurbished and commissioned in 2012.
According to imagery released by the People’s Liberation Army Navy, like Liaoning, the new carrier will rely on a Short Take Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) system of launching aircraft with fighters launching from a so-called skip-ramp at the bow of the ship.
The new carrier was modified from the original design to include a new S-band radar system, a smaller island to maximize the number of aircraft aboard and changes to the ski-ramp launching system.
Reports from the PLA say the new carrier would field an unspecified number of – an unlicensed copy of the Russian Sukhoi Su-33 fighter.
The Chinese quietly began construction of the Type-001A in 2013 at the same shipyard the Liaoning was with .
In late 2015, after almost two years of speculation, Chinese officials confirmed the construction of the Type-001A in an unexpected press conference.
“After taking into account a range of factors, the relevant authorities launched work on developing a second aircraft carrier, and we are now undertaking our own indigenous design and construction,” Col. Yang Yuju, .
“We have a long coastline and a broad maritime jurisdiction… Defending national maritime security, and safeguarding sovereignty over territorial seas and over maritime rights and interests, are sacred duties of China’s armed forces.”
China’s Aircraft Carrier Future
China is thought to have already begun construction on its second domestic carrier – Type-002 — .
Unlike the new Type-001A and Liaoning, the new carrier is expected to field a catapult launching system allowing a wider variety of aircraft to operate from the carrier. Satellite images of the nearby Huangdicun Airbase in Liaoning Province show what appears to be electromagnetic and steam catapult launching test systems.
“Developing its own CATOBAR system, and fitting it on China’s future aircraft carriers will enable the PLAN to operate a well-rounded carrier air wing that includes force multipliers such as Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, which tend to be heavier and use less-powerful, but more efficient engines,” .
Still, what China intends to do with the carriers is less than clear.
“China wants to sail a gradually increasing number of aircraft carriers into the center of growing blue water operations. The evidence is growing in Chinese shipyards and ports across the Indian Ocean and beyond,” Andrew Erickson, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI).
Beijing has flirted with transparency in expressing its aircraft carrier goals. Government documents and officials have said China was set to pursue a four-carrier force over the last eight years.
Ocean Development Report, China declared it would pursue development of its own domestic carrier program. It took six months for the detail to make it into the Western press.
“In 2009, China put forward an idea and plan for building aircraft carriers. These indicate China has entered the historical era of building a maritime superpower,” read a translation of the report.
, a Chinese party official declared Beijing was set to build four carriers in a state report, but the government quickly deleted the instance.
A four-carrier force would mimic traditional carrier deployment patterns in which there are three carriers in maintenance or workups for every carrier deployed.
“This is likely just the beginning of China’s fledgling naval aviation capabilities as their maritime forces build towards a large well-balanced fleet capable of protecting and projecting Chinese interests in the Pacific and potentially around the world,” Eric Wertheim, , told USNI News on Wednesday.
The following is the complete April 26, 2017 release from the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China.
DALIAN, April 26 (ChinaMil) — ...
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