CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

[ACuriousPLAFan]

J-15T pilots are not trained for Ski ramps.

Did you forgot about this already?



(Note that the J-15T was previously known as J-15B prior to the official designation reveal)

KJ-500 are not operational yet. So cannot lead air wing exercises

Certainly not the case. If the KJ-600s aren't yet operational, then it wouldn't appear fly over Tiananmen on 9-3, let alone shown being operated from Fujian just recently.

Furthermore, given how long it has been since the KJ-600 first flew, it's only normal to expect them to have conducted certain degree of training exercises with friendly fighters (J-15H/DH/T/DT and J-35) by now, even if the KJ-600 aren't STOBAR-capable (which can be easily solved by having the KJ-600s based at PLANAF land bases and have the STOBAR twins sail in the vicinity of the littoral regions, where KJ-600s from onshore would train together with carrier-based fighters coming from the STOBAR twins.

In fact, both Liaoning and Shandong have done at least several cruises in the Yellow and Bohai Seas for training exercises before.

Also, pulling out a jointEx on such short notice, even if you have a drawer plan ready, without a workup period typically never happens.

I'm suggesting a probability. And if it doesn't happen this time, it will happen eventually if not soon enough.

Fair point. I did wonder what proportion of Fujian airwings is formed up from experienced pilots from Liaoning/Shandong and how many are clean slate Naval aviators.

But a current Liaoning/Shandong pilot that is EMCAT qualified and current has got to be rare?

Any high skill or high risk activity that is not a "daily" skill in peacetime will always require refresher before live execution. This can be as simple as a dry run to a incremental lead up refresher/training.

Given that any land facility for training EMCAT launch and actual EMCAT on Fujian will be dedicated to bringing Fujian air wing up to speed, I highly doubt that Liaoning and Shandong are that comfortably ready to crossdeck to Fujian on short notice while under peacetime parameters.

I certainly would expect at least certain portions of the J-15T pilots of Liaoning's and Shandong's CVWs to have undergone CATO training by now.

This is especially when considering that they do have carrier operational experiences underneath their belts on the STOBAR twins, which would be very useful towards not just refining and perfecting CATOBAR operations on Fujian, but also greatly assisting the training process of fresh-blood pilots whose first assigned carrier is the Fujian.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

Bottom line, there are other dual carrier exercises they could do. But frankly, right now Fujian's top priorities are likely its catapults and deck ops. There will be plenty of opportunities for dual carrier exercises in the future. Just be patient.

Edit: it should be point out that the jump in difficulty of deck ops is drastic. They're going from effectively 1 type of fixed wing aircraft, to 5-6 (J-15T, J-35, KJ-600, L-15, GJ-21, plus more difficult J-15D ops due to the permutations) while being on a much larger deck. The difficulty rises exponentially.

 

[Heliox]

Did you forgot about this already?

View attachment 162011

(Note that the J-15T was previously known as J-15B prior to the official designation reveal)

Okay.
I was thinking more along the line that a fresh J-15T Naval aviator currently training for Fujian will not have the required Ski ramp training. But if the Fujian pilots are all ex-Liaoning/Shandong, then as long as skills are current.

Certainly not the case. If the KJ-600s aren't yet operational, then it wouldn't appear fly over Tiananmen on 9-3, let alone shown being operated from Fujian just recently.

Furthermore, given how long it has been since the KJ-600 first flew, it's only normal to expect them to have conducted certain degree of training exercises with friendly fighters (J-15H/DH/T/DT and J-35) by now, even if the KJ-600 aren't STOBAR-capable (which can be easily solved by having the KJ-600s based at PLANAF land bases and have the STOBAR twins sail in the vicinity of the littoral regions, where KJ-600s from onshore would train together with carrier-based fighters coming from the STOBAR twins.

In fact, both Liaoning and Shandong have done at least several cruises in the Yellow and Bohai Seas for training exercises before.

The F-35 flew in the 9/3 parade as well. They sure are not in any Operational squadron(s) are they?

I reckon the claim that all platforms in the 9/3 parade are "operational" needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Accepted into service and LRIP at least. No prototypes for sure. Fully operational carries a certain meaning beyond produced and delivered to a unit.

I haven't paid particular attention to the details of the KJ-600 first flight, first delivery dates but they do make a difference in inferring time available for work up to IOC. Yes, it is possible for KJ-600 to have an land based operational squadron formed awaiting carrier qualification.

I certainly would expect at least certain portions of the J-15T pilots of Liaoning's and Shandong's CVWs to have undergone CATO training by now.

This is especially when considering that they do have carrier operational experiences underneath their belts on the STOBAR twins, which would be very useful towards not just refining and perfecting CATOBAR operations on Fujian, but also greatly assisting the training process of fresh-blood pilots whose first assigned carrier is the Fujian.

Like you said, only to the extent that they are helping to work up Fujian pilots.
I believe the training pipeline is still constrained and fully geared to getting Fujian's airwings up and running.
The idea that a STOBAR pilot assigned to and remaining on Liaoning/Shandong is EMCAT qualified and not actually awaiting a very near future reassignment to Fujian is, to me, quite a stretch.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

The F-35 flew in the 9/3 parade as well. They sure are not in any Operational squadron(s) are they?

I'm sure you mean J-35, because there never was any F-35C in China to begin with.

Besides, the J-35 already has LRIP units and is operational, albeit not publicly known to be from Fujian herself. If not, then what are these?

I reckon the claim that all platforms in the 9/3 parade are "operational" needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Accepted into service and LRIP at least. No prototypes for sure. Fully operational carries a certain meaning beyond produced and delivered to a unit.

Being in (I/F)OTE stages in the PLA while working out on ironing any discovered kinks and deficiencies can be considered in service and operational (albeit not 100% fully). This is pretty much the norm elsewhere and not just in China.

I haven't paid particular attention to the details of the KJ-600 first flight, first delivery dates but they do make a difference in inferring time available for work up to IOC. Yes, it is possible for KJ-600 to have an land based operational squadron formed awaiting carrier qualification.

I didn't claim IOC. I said KJ-600 training with carrier-based fighters, which is pretty normal to expect such trainings to have been done at least to a certain degree by this point.

Like you said, only to the extent that they are helping to work up Fujian pilots.
I believe the training pipeline is still constrained and fully geared to getting Fujian's airwings up and running.
The idea that a STOBAR pilot assigned to and remaining on Liaoning/Shandong is EMCAT qualified and not actually awaiting a very near future reassignment to Fujian is, to me, quite a stretch.

Given how the pilots can be trained (J-15T/DT) or retrained (J-15H/DH) at land-based facilities + Continue operating from the STOBAR twins while waiting for reassignment to Fujian, that's certainly not a stretch.

Besides, the key difference between operating from Liaoning/Shandong and Fujian lies with how the fighters are launched (STO versus CATO), with pretty much everything else (e.g. BAR, movement between different locations on the flight deck, pre-flight and post-flight checks, etc) being more or less similar, bar some slight variations. So there isn't really much a bottleneck preventing J-15T/DT pilots from Liaoning/Shandong to go onboard Fujian straight away, as long as preparations for CATOBAR operations have been completed prior.

 

[yuxiaochen]

She's really beautiful,isn't?
View attachment 161892

I vivdly remember visiting the Sanya base when I was a child, and waking up in the morning to the sound of 168 blowing its horns was truly magical.

 

[Heliox]

I'm sure you mean J-35, because there never was any F-35C in China to begin with.

Besides, the J-35 already has LRIP units and is operational, albeit not publicly known to be from Fujian herself. If not, then what are these?

View attachment 162017
View attachment 162019

Heh. Yes, Js. I'm terrible at this.
As for what these are? Delivered airframes. Inducted into unit. Operating but not yet IOC? Serials means production units assigned. Doesn't mean they the unit delivered to have finished their work up and achieved Operational capability, which was what I was getting at.

Being in (I/F)OTE stages in the PLA while working out on ironing any discovered kinks and deficiencies can be considered in service and operational (albeit not 100% fully). This is pretty much the norm elsewhere and not just in China.

I didn't claim IOC. I said KJ-600 training with carrier-based fighters, which is pretty normal to expect such trainings to have been done at least to a certain degree by this point.

Given how the pilots can be trained (J-15T/DT) or retrained (J-15H/DH) at land-based facilities + Continue operating from the STOBAR twins while waiting for reassignment to Fujian, that's certainly not a stretch.

Besides, the key difference between operating from Liaoning/Shandong and Fujian lies with how the fighters are launched (STO versus CATO), with pretty much everything else (e.g. BAR, movement between different locations on the flight deck, pre-flight and post-flight checks, etc) being more or less similar, bar some slight variations. So there isn't really much a bottleneck preventing J-15T/DT pilots from Liaoning/Shandong to go onboard Fujian straight away, as long as preparations for CATOBAR operations have been completed prior.

Suffice to say, we agree that cross decking requires prior training? I have no info on the level of CAT training for the non-CAT airwing pilots and my take is simply that the training pipeline is unlikely to have qualified pilots outside of those urgently required to form up the 100+ pilots required for the Fujian's airwings. I may well be wrong but again, within the context of the original discussion - in the current nascent stage of CAT operations, pulling together a JointEx exercising the above while sailing away from a Typhoon is just not likely.

As for air wing exercises, my take is that a mature, operational unit training with a new formed unit doing it's work up training, especially if the new unit is partially or substantially formed with new aviators is like experienced operators attempting to conduct a Joint Ex with a bunch of recruits. Nothing or very little of anything will be gained from it. Again, this is predicated on info I cannot swear by, ie. the level of pilot experience on the Fujian airwings as well as the current state of their operation (not just flying) capability. Again within the context of pulling out a drawer plan and hastily putting together a JointEx with something like 72hr NTM ...

I've said enough on this. I could well be wrong. Just my 2c

 

[xiabonan]

Cute Orca posted this screenshot on his Weibo with endorsement that the 2 stealthy planes were F-22s. So this was from a guy's Douyin and this guy posted a photo of him standing right next to the pilot of the J-16 Mr Li Chao. He asked Mr Li himself what plane it was and Mr Li told him they were F-22s.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

HD satellite image of the carriers together (before they left)

Via @ImageSatIntl

Edit: added a quick comparison of the two

 

[Blitzo]

HD satellite image of the carriers together (before they left)

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1974476592819679359

An actual real image as opposed to the one which was fabricated and made the rounds on a few places, nice.


Also interesting that we seem to be able to ID a "centre foul line" for the bow catapult now, which wasn't present on previous imagery (afaik) and definitely wasn't present with the initial footage we had of the aviation trials... but was actually present on art of CV-18 when it was launched and also present at the Huangdicun airfield CV-18 flight deck replica.

Those two different foul lines on the bow should be for catapult no. 2 (bow catapult, port side) when launching a a fighter which has a smaller wingspan, it would use the centre foul line, which provides more space over the bow starboard catapult to spot -- area depicted in red.
And when launching a KJ-600 it would use the starboard-most foul line indicating where aircraft can be spotted over the bow starboard catapult which has a bit less horizontal deck width (area depicted in green).

This seems fairly sensible because the most logical place to launch a KJ-600 to me seems to be the waist catapult, which preserves the bow catapults for launching tactical aircraft and able to make use of the bow-starboard catapult for spotting aircraft during a launch cycle utilizing the bow-port catapult and waist catapult

 

[GiantPanda]

The fact that at least a squadron's worth of J-15Ts were at the Liaoning/Shandong joint ops should be an indication that the current and future pilots for the Fujian were/are already operating on the STOBARs.

Unless the J-15Ts are in such numbers that those piloting the T's in this frame are just STOBAR pilots only.



I find it unlikely that J-15Ts are in numbers available to all three carriers right now. If training cannot be crossed then they would keep the J-15Ts at the catapult grounds at Huangdicun training the CATOBAR pilots.

I think training can be crossed especially the trapping and overall ship-borne knowledge.

In fact, I believe all of the pilots from the Fujian are drawn from those who, if not part of the home air wing on Liaoning or Shandong, have launched and trapped on the STOBARs as part of the PLAN's sylllabus.

I believe cross training can most definitely take place. The J-15T has already flown and recovered on both carrier types.

I think all of the pilots, including those for the KJ-600 and J-35, were drawn from the pool of J-15 pilots who flew off the STOBARs. At had trained on one of the two. Of course there were extra training for those specific types at Huangdicun but I think it is extremely unlikely that the landings was saw on Fujian were piloted by new operators who had never used a tailhook on a carrier before.