CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

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taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
Btw, in regards to this part of the post, I imagine this is the sort of development that they would hear through the grapevine via insiders.

It is not likely for anyone who is not military/govt to have been able to literally see a successful launch from Huangdicun (which we should remember is a fully functional, fairly isolated naval air facility).
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Agreed.

The chance of any true outsiders being able to literally see it happening is close to zero. The site is totally military not even with any residential area for families of the pilots and workers. It is far away from the road where civilians are allowed. Unless some professional spies/civilians did a super good job to get close enough to identify a catapult launch from a ski-jump launch.

Instead, what's more likely I think is that such a successful launch would've occurred (unobserved by anybody who is not military/govt) and instead was filtered down through the various contacts semi-deliberately and relayed to cao gen who then told us.
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That is almost certain. See my post #309 about the raised deflactors. A launch trail is 100% ganranteed. I am willing to accept the possibility (1%) of a failure of J-15 into the air just to be logically water-tight, not really I believe it.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
taxiya said:
now, two photos I find interesting to compare.
The first photo has J-15 and the exhaust deflactors down (see the white markings around them).
The second photo dos not show the markings of both deflactors.

Does that mean that the deflactors were all raised in the second photo?
If so, does that mean both catapults were being tested.
And so, it is possible that J-15 has been launched from both catapults regardless which is EM or Steam.
BTW, I have not decided the types of the two catapults. Though that is not my current interests.
144722h7tstt3se07flzts.jpg

and
View attachment 33970
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Can you clarify what you mean?

The jet blast deflectors/JBDs in both photos I think are both "down" (aka lowered flat to the tarmac), it's just that I think in the second photo (i.e. the later photo), they have the white markings around them.

I think the most plausible explanation is that between the time of the first photo and second photo being taken, they painted the white markings on the JBDs, fully adding the finishing touches to the catapults and associated apparatus.
I think this is the most sensible and simplest reason -- if we look at the part of the catapult apparatus in front of the JBDs, we can see some additional paint markings which seem to be indicative of aircraft parking positions, which is not present in the first picture but present in the second picture, suggesting they've definitely added some additional paint markings.

I do not think either of the two photos happened to be taken when they were testing the catapults or anything.

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Also, I think we should essentially give up on trying to rely on satellite photos to prove that they were testing the catapults or to prove that they had successfully launched a plane. A single snap satellite photo cannot do that, we would need a satellite video for that, which obviously isn't going to be accessible to us.

More importantly, I don't even think we need any evidence to make the argument that they have likely already tested the catapults at Huangdicun and at least successfuly tested the J-15A from the EM cat, because that is all within the realm of plausibility with these photos showing the completion of the two catapults
 
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visitant

New Member
Registered Member
IMO CV002s most likely are steam ones, it's not you have a successful tested EM cat now then you could install it on the ship next year. The question should be asked is when the design of CV002 enter freeze stage, that must be one or two years before, was EM cat ready? Probably not.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
visitant said:
IMO CV002s most likely are steam ones, it's not you have a successful tested EM cat now then you could install it on the ship next year. The question should be asked is when the design of CV002 enter freeze stage, that must be one or two years before, was EM cat ready? Probably not.
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A large part of the ship is not influenced by the choice of cat. It is well possible to delay that choice in order to avoid using a steam cat if the EM cat can proven no more than two years or so before the ship is to be floated out of her building dock.
 
I

Iron Man

Major
Registered Member
delft said:
A large part of the ship is not influenced by the choice of cat. It is well possible to delay that choice in order to avoid using a steam cat if the EM cat can proven no more than two years or so before the ship is to be floated out of her building dock.
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I don't know if that's even possible. Even if a large part of the ship isn't influenced by the choice of cat, you may not be able to wait to build those sections of the ship that actually are influenced by the choice of cat. The decision may already have to be made by the time construction starts.
 
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