CV-17 Shandong (002 carrier) Thread I ...News, Views and operations

[MwRYum]

This has undoubtedly been covered before, but do we know if CV-17 is being built with provisions for fitting one or more catapults (whether of Steam or EM type) at a later date?

First of all they haven't even nail down the catapult model yet, so we don't see the CV-17 have any pre-allocated space below the flight deck to install one in the future.

To finalise the model will take another 2 years from now at the very least. Of which the CV-17 will probably the only combat-station carrier of the PLAN, with Liaoning concentrate on flight training.

Assuming the construction of China's first CATOBAR carrier begin right after the catapult has been chosen, that'll talk 5 years at least from cutting the first plate to handing over the ship to PLAN; then, further 5-10 years for PLAN to master the CATOBAR ops before they think about modding either Liaoning or CV-17, but certainly will take the ship off the board for a few years because such work will be entensive.

 

[Blitzo]

This has undoubtedly been covered before, but do we know if CV-17 is being built with provisions for fitting one or more catapults (whether of Steam or EM type) at a later date?

We have heard no rumours about such provisions (I assume you mean waist cats), nor have we been able to observe any obvious indication of such intent during the construction process so far (though of course even if there were provisions we may not be able to see it anyway).

I personally would be a little bit surprised if they did take the time to design such provisions into 001A, because 001A is meant to be the lower risk, and faster delivery carrier... but who knows.

First of all they haven't even nail down the catapult model yet, so we don't see the CV-17 have any pre-allocated space below the flight deck to install one in the future.

To finalise the model will take another 2 years from now at the very least. Of which the CV-17 will probably the only combat-station carrier of the PLAN, with Liaoning concentrate on flight training.

Assuming the construction of China's first CATOBAR carrier begin right after the catapult has been chosen, that'll talk 5 years at least from cutting the first plate to handing over the ship to PLAN; then, further 5-10 years for PLAN to master the CATOBAR ops before they think about modding either Liaoning or CV-17, but certainly will take the ship off the board for a few years because such work will be entensive.

That doesn't really answer his question -- whichever catapult they decide to go with for 002 has no bearing on whether 001A has any provisions that we know of for eventually being fitted with catapults... provisions could be made for both catapult types
Or provisions could be made just for the EM cat type, for when the technology eventually matures which would be right when 001A would be undergoing such a major refit anyway (assuming the EM cat is not chosen as the Navy's first catapult straight off the bat). Either way, I don't think anyone believes the EM cat will not be the Navy's long term future catapult type. The current "competition" between the catapults is for the more immediate carriers to be built, widely expected to be the first 002.


And no, I do not think it would take 5-10 years for the Navy to master CATOBAR operations -- if their deck crew and pilots are able to master STOBAR operations, before receiving the first CATOBAR operations, then the transition to CATOBAR operations should be very smooth.

Let's remember that the most difficult skills -- such as managing a busy flight deck, moving and spotting aircraft along the busy deck, arming/fuelling/maintaining aircraft on a carrier at sea, pilots operating from an aircraft carrier at sea (including the difficult act of landing on a moving carrier at sea) and the entire running of a large and complex ship like a carrier -- are all cross applicable between a STOBAR and CATOBAR carrier.

The biggest differences between STOBAR and CATOBAR operations will be that they have more bow deck space to work with for spotting aircraft (which would actually make things easier, compared to a ski jump), and that they will have to change their aircraft launch procedure slightly, and also of course the slightly added complexity of maintaining the catapult system itself.

If 002 is meaningfully bigger than 001A as rumoured, then that will obviously also add a slight layer of additional complexity to operations, but at the same time if the deck crew and pilots do have mastery of operating aboard Liaoning or 001A, then it will be relatively easy for them to transition to operating aboard 002.



In fact, I would not be surprised if one of the reasons why the Navy decided to go for 001A before 002 is exactly because they knew that many of the most essential and difficult pilot skills, as well as many of the most essential and difficult deck crew skills that would be important for 002, can also just as effectively be trained and learned aboard a STOBAR carrier.
Therefore they chose to build and commission an additional STOBAR carrier to Liaoning, so that they could have two carriers in service for a few years to have a bigger and more experienced pool of human resources that can more immediately and effectively transition to operate 002 when it enters service, that way they can "hit the ground running" with 002.

Of course, additional reasons such as technological conservativeness, tech maturity etc were probably major factors too, but I think the usefulness of 001A in generating a greater amount of pilots and deck crew for rapid 002 operation would also have been a factor.

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Also, I wouldn't necessarily assume that construction of the catapult carrier will have to occur after the catapult is chosen -- depending on how they designed the carrier, there is a strong possibility that they could conduct construction of the ship up to a certain stage of completion and to avoid construction of all the relevant parts of the ship that are important for the ship's catapult subsystems, to minimize delay.
Of course, that will depend on how they designed the ship and its catapult associated subsystems to begin with.

 

[Iron Man]

First of all they haven't even nail down the catapult model yet, so we don't see the CV-17 have any pre-allocated space below the flight deck to install one in the future.

To finalise the model will take another 2 years from now at the very least. Of which the CV-17 will probably the only combat-station carrier of the PLAN, with Liaoning concentrate on flight training.

Assuming the construction of China's first CATOBAR carrier begin right after the catapult has been chosen, that'll talk 5 years at least from cutting the first plate to handing over the ship to PLAN; then, further 5-10 years for PLAN to master the CATOBAR ops before they think about modding either Liaoning or CV-17, but certainly will take the ship off the board for a few years because such work will be entensive.

I have my doubts as to the merits of assuming CV-16 is going to concentrate mainly on training in perpetuity, and CV-17 mainly on combat. The Liaoning is only a/the "training" carrier right now because the PLAN has no other carrier to train with. Once CV-17 comes on line I have little doubt they will both be used to train crews, with one on active duty while the other is refueling, receiving pierside maintenance, and training up the next batch prior to swapping active duty patrols with the currently active carrier. Once CV-18 comes on line the Liaoning will probably go into drydock for her midlife overhaul and be out of action for a few years while CV-17 and CV-18 rotate in and out of active patrol and refueling/maintenance/training.

As for refitting cats onto CV-16 and CV-17, I agree with the others in saying that this is likely to be prohibitively expensive, if even possible at all. Steam cats are just right out, but even EM cats would involve some major internal surgery. CV-16 almost certainly doesn't have the space for the extra machinery needed for either cat type, while it is remotely possible extra space is designed into CV-17 from the keel up for future cats. But I seriously doubt this as well. The only thing that might give us a clue is if we can see any kind of catapult well being built on the angled flight deck area of the CV-17 during the construction of the flight deck. If we haven't seen this by now though, I don't think we'll see it at all, since construction is almost complete.

 

[Intrepid]

The Liaoning is only a/the "training" carrier right now because the PLAN has no other carrier to train with.

I think, Liaoning will be a training carrier as long as the Chinese carrier force is growing: for the whole service live.

The Chinese carrier force will grow until fixed wing aircrafts are obsolete, may be in 60 years with ten large CVNs.




Some thoughts about ski ramp: if you look at the skid marks on the ramp, you can imagine the force on wheels there. A ski ramp limits the aircraft speed to 80 knots. A ski ramp on the end of a landing strip limits the approach speed, because you have to think of a possible go arround. Nonsense!

If you remove the ski ramp on the bow and install catapults, you can use more deck space for spotting aircraft. The ski ramp on Liaoning and 001A limits the number of aircraft, that can be recovered in one single landing phase. May be ten aircraft as a maximum. A Nimitz class carrier can recover 40 or 50 aircraft, a Ford class carrier even more. That is the difference!

Liaoning without ski ramp could recover something in the range of 20 aircraft, double the number than now.

 

[Blitzo]

I think, Liaoning will be a training carrier as long as the Chinese carrier force is growing: for the whole service live.

The Chinese carrier force will grow until fixed wing aircrafts are obsolete, may be in 60 years with ten large CVNs.

I'm not sure how large the Chinese carrier force will eventually become (I personally think 5-6 are a sweet spot to look for by the mid 2030s) -- but I do not think the Liaoning will forever be a "training carrier".

I've used the term "seed carrier" before, and it is now my term of choice to describe Liaoning's present role. I.e.: right now, and in the next few years, its major role will be to train large numbers of pilots and crew, yes, but that will only likely take up the majority of its duties before more carriers enter service, until which it will fulfill the role of a standard fleet carrier.

Once the Navy has 2-3 carriers in service (and growing of course), it is likely that the role of training new pilots and crew will be rotated among the available carriers as each one moves through the maintenance/refit vs service cycle, and by that time they should be able to have a much larger pool of trained pilots and experienced crew such that the time needed for a single carrier to exclusively be used for training new personnel should be much shorter than what Liaoning had gone through.


Right now Liaoning appears to be filling the exclusive role of a "training carrier" because of two major reasons:
1) it is the Navy's first carrier, so they have to invest in a lot of time to develop a substantial amount of new doctrine, experience and skills at the individual level but also the service level.
2) it is also the Navy's only carrier at present, therefore the duty of doing the tasks mentioned in 1) means that Liaoning will spend a large amount of its time seemingly doing the "training" role and making it appear like an exclusive "training carrier"

But that does not mean we should assume Liaoning will fulfill those roles forever.
For 1), once the Navy has a much larger pool of skilled and experienced personnel and doctrinal confidence, it is likely they will eventually spend less time needed for that role of developing the aforementioned experience and skills.
For 2) once the Navy has more carriers in service, the duty of doing the tasks in 1) (which, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, should be significantly lesser than the last few years or currently) can be spread among more carriers over time, so that the "training" role is no longer exclusive to any single one carrier nor would it take up as much of each carrier's overall availability.

Some thoughts about ski ramp: if you look at the skid marks on the ramp, you can imagine the force on wheels there. A ski ramp limits the aircraft speed to 80 knots. A ski ramp on the end of a landing strip limits the approach speed, because you have to think of a possible go arround. Nonsense!

If you remove the ski ramp on the bow and install catapults, you can use more deck space for spotting aircraft. The ski ramp on Liaoning and 001A limits the number of aircraft, that can be recovered in one single landing phase. May be ten aircraft as a maximum. A Nimitz class carrier can recover 40 or 50 aircraft, a Ford class carrier even more. That is the difference!

Liaoning without ski ramp could recover something in the range of 20 aircraft, double the number than now.

Removing the bow ski jump and installing catapults is almost definitely not going to happen on Liaoning or 001A.

The entire talk of "provisions for catapults" I think have been referring to the provisions of catapults on the waist of Liaoning. I don't think anyone is even half-jokingly considering removing the ski jump.

 

[Intrepid]

Removing the bow ski jump and installing catapults is almost definitely not going to happen on Liaoning or 001A.

The entire talk of "provisions for catapults" I think have been referring to the provisions of catapults on the waist of Liaoning. I don't think anyone is even half-jokingly considering removing the ski jump.

It isn't the question, what will happen. It is the question, what can happen. And it can happen! It is possible to install catapults either on the bow and/or on the waist and it is possible to remove the ski jump.

A pilot trained for ski jump is not automatically able to use catapults and vice versa. It needs an extra qualification training after a periode of time of not using cat or ramp.

 

[schenkus]

I've used the term "seed carrier" before, and it is now my term of choice to describe Liaoning's present role. I.e.: right now, and in the next few years, its major role will be to train large numbers of pilots and crew, yes, but that will only likely take up the majority of its duties before more carriers enter service, until which it will fulfill the role of a standard fleet carrier.

For the moment we only see the Liaoning training flight operations, I would guess that soon we will see them doing more training with a group of escorts.
I hope that in a few years when CV-17 is getting ready for flight operations, China will already be using a carrier group based around Liaoning in their fleet exercises and start sending a small CVBG beyond the first island chain (perhaps even into the indian ocean).

What are your ideas about the timing of these next steps ?

 

[Intrepid]

What are your ideas about the timing of these next steps ?

China is preparing to be able to rely on its own aircraft carriers in 15 years. Until then, everything is just training.

 

[schenkus]

China is preparing to be able to rely on its own aircraft carriers in 15 years. Until then, everything is just training.

My question was meant to be about the pace of the training, I hope to see a lot of progress within the next 5 years.

I would be disappointed if in 2020 the carrier(s) were still used mostly for flight training and didn't take a prominent role in chinese fleet exercises.

 

[Iron Man]

It isn't the question, what will happen. It is the question, what can happen. And it can happen! It is possible to install catapults either on the bow and/or on the waist and it is possible to remove the ski jump.

While these things are certainly "possible" (even if financially untenable) for the flight deck and would involve complete internal remodeling of a significant portion of 03-level, how do you know it is "possible" to install the internal machinery that would be needed to operate catapults? It's not like carriers have empty internal spaces sitting around waiting to be used for large steam generators or alternators.