EM catapults and IFEP certainly are not necessary for each other.
Having a more powerful electric genset for the ship's service use can be fine for EM catapults.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
EM catapults and IFEP certainly are not necessary for each other.
Having a more powerful electric genset for the ship's service use can be fine for EM catapults.
You have to understand the context of the F-15EX, and not just look at how long fighters such as F-15 and Su-27, designed and built during cold war, lasted in service in the much more relaxed and less competitive atmosphere after the cold war.
F-15EX is an stop gap solution to 30 years of bad planning by USAF. F35 clearly lacks the kinematic performance or the radar to be a first tier air superiority fighter. They will find it challenging to face even 4th generation fighters like the J11 or Su35. F22 can either match or out match current adversaries, but There is not nearly enough F22. The bulk of the remaining F15C fleet was built in the 1980s. Although with upgrades F15C remains barely adequate against 4th generation fighters such as J11 for now, they are well beyond the end of their airframe life. So the US is left with insufficient and dwindling number of true air superiority fighters, and nothing new ready to fill the gap. Restarting F22 production will be far more expensive than producing more moderately upgrading F-15 because the production line for F-15 is still active while that of F22 is dismantled. So F-15EX is not a continued long term commitment to F15, It is simply an recognition of reality and ad hoc measure to tie the USAF over in terms of fighter fleet size until successor to F22 reaches service.
Rest assured even brand new F-15EX being built now is very unlikely to remain in frontline service much beyond 2030 time frame.
think of it this way, had the cold war lasted,The F15 would have been out of front line service by 2000-2005 at the latest. By then It would have had a very good run of 30 years in front line service snd been replace one for one by F22. The Su-27 and all their derivatives would be similarly out of front line service by 2005-2010 and replaced by Mig 1.44. The end of super power competition put paid to their replacement plans and allowed them to linger on much longer than they would otherwise. Now that the US and China seems to be resuming arms competition approaching the scale of the cold wAr, you think the jets from the last cold war will last another 30 years?
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Okay, stop the discussion about F-15EX and F-18 now please.
Any further posts on the matter in this thread will be deleted.
If you want to discuss the prospects of new 4+ gen fighters and their long term viability in service, discuss it in a new thread.
Any further posts on the matter in this thread will be deleted.
If you want to discuss the prospects of new 4+ gen fighters and their long term viability in service, discuss it in a new thread.
They moved out the ship that was being built behind the AC.
The ship behind 003 has been removed.
And there's an Imaginary image for 003 and Ford, but the size of the elevator is wrong.
There should be another two weapon elevators in front of the bow catapults.
Within 9 years?
Very unlikely.
More so because fully replacing J-15 with J-31 is probably less than optimal.
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