CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

[Blitzo]

IMHO, positions of the lifts and island aren't good. They take too much deck and don't allow parking of enough planes on the deck. There's room for just around 10-12 aircrafts on deck ( without impairing the flight operations ), too little number IMO.

The space that the island takes is fine.
As a conventionally powered carrier, it's going to have a bigger island than the island of a nuclear powered carrier.
If one compares the deck footprint that 003's island takes compared to the total deck footprint of the island and radar mast of say, Kitty Hawk class, the 003 likely uses slightly less space.

As for the elevators, on 003 the positions are only slightly suboptimal, and even that is only in exceptional circumstances.
The PLAN should be practicing cyclic flight operations similar to the USN and MN on their CATOBAR carriers, and it would be a very rare occasion in which flight operations are done at the same time in which the elevators would be in use.
And the whole point of cyclic flight operations is that the much mythologized "simultaneous launch and recovery" does not happen.
During a launch cycle, you keep the catapults in the bow and waist clear with aircraft spotted aft to those positions, and yes that means you won't be doing recoveries because the waist and the landing strip/aft flight deck will be occupied by aircraft that are spotted or getting ready to taxi forwards for launch.
During a recovery cycle (after a launch cycle), you will have cleared up the waist and landing strip of aircraft which lets you start to recover aircraft, and as you recover aircraft you'll spot them on the bow flight deck gradually and then on the aft flight deck alongside the landing strip, with more than enough room at the bow to use the elevator for moving aircraft from the flight deck to the hangar if needed, but chances are you'll be doing that near the end of the recovery cycle. For the rest of the aircraft that don't need to go to the hangar, they'll be towed back to the aft of the flight deck to get ready for another launch cycle.
So for standard cyclic operations, the elevator positions should be fine, because they have plenty of deckspace to work with already.


Given the size of the carrier, likely redesigns to accommodate the EM catapult in place of the original steam catapult, and the difficulty to redesign the structural openings for the hangar and elevators, the end configuration that they came up with is probably the best one they had, and minimizes the compromises given the parameters they had to work with.

 

[Squidward]

Given the size of the carrier, likely redesigns to accommodate the EM catapult in place of the original steam catapult, and the difficulty to redesign the structural openings for the hangar and elevators, the end configuration that they came up with is probably the best one they had, and minimizes the compromises given the parameters they had to work with.

I've read somewhere else (in this thread, I think?) that 003 was originally designed to have 4 steam catapults, and probably didn't have the bow JBD blocking the elevator. If so many changes were made, I wonder if the PLAN will actually be satisfied with such a radically altered design.

What are the odds that the PLAN opts to go for another carrier after 003 that meets their initial design expectations for 003, i.e. 4 catapults (though this time they'll use EMALS) and enough length to accomodate the EMALS without blocking an elevator with a JBD, yet still conventionally powered as per the original design? Though since you'd probably be widening the ship and definitely lengthening it, such a "003 but with the original amount of catapults and positions" design would probably be getting close to 100,000k tons displacement.

... at which point yeah, you might as well swap over to nuclear propulsion and call it 004. Still, it's interesting to think of what 003 was originally supposed to look like.

 

[Intrepid]

I find it presumptuous when hobbyists with no operational experience criticize the layout of an aircraft carrier that has been designed over many years.

 

[pesoleati]

I've read somewhere else (in this thread, I think?) that 003 was originally designed to have 4 steam catapults, and probably didn't have the bow JBD blocking the elevator. If so many changes were made, I wonder if the PLAN will actually be satisfied with such a radically altered design.

What are the odds that the PLAN opts to go for another carrier after 003 that meets their initial design expectations for 003, i.e. 4 catapults (though this time they'll use EMALS) and enough length to accomodate the EMALS without blocking an elevator with a JBD, yet still conventionally powered as per the original design? Though since you'd probably be widening the ship and definitely lengthening it, such a "003 but with the original amount of catapults and positions" design would probably be getting close to 100,000k tons displacement.

... at which point yeah, you might as well swap over to nuclear propulsion and call it 004. Still, it's interesting to think of what 003 was originally supposed to look like.

should build another 5 of what you said plus IEP in the next 20 years! DaLian can spend these 20 years to build the perfect CNVs

 

[Hendrik_2000]

Few week ago we saw screed grab of what look like steam turbine assembly. Here is the explanation Is this video posted before
Promotional video of Type 003 AC

 

[Intrepid]

Few week ago we saw screed grab of what look like steam turbine assembly. Here is the explanation Is this video posted before
Promotional video of Type 003 AC ...

At 1:57 min ... accelerates a 50-ton fighter (!)

 

[asif iqbal]

I find it presumptuous when hobbyists with no operational experience criticize the layout of an aircraft carrier that has been designed over many years.

and so all aircraft carrier designs are infallible ?

UK had planned to build 1 x STOBAR + 1 x CATOBAR for the Queen Elizabeth Carriers

I was on many forums at the time following the discussions which were more sensible than what the military planners come up with

China spent 10 years refitting the CV16 and on this forum I have seen many good ideas which were not implemented

the list can go on and on

requirements and technology is changing all the time and this is why military planners are always trying to adapt nothing wrong with that

many designers and planners who design these things have no operational experience (engineers and technicians in a office) which is why many times by the time a piece of equipment is ready it is already out of date or falls very short of what was expected of it

but to say forums and members or hobbyist cant criticise military equipment because they have no military experience is a dubious proposition at best and even quite simply hypocritical

 

[Intrepid]

I assume that the layout of 003 was checked for its suitability by competent professionals for many thousands of hours in a flight operations laboratory.

 

[Squidward]

I assume that the layout of 003 was checked for its suitability by competent professionals for many thousands of hours in a flight operations laboratory.

I'm not saying that the revised, current layout doesn't work, of course it does. But it's likely that what we see now wasn't the one originally envisioned. I'm just wondering if there will be any attempts from the PLAN to achieve their original layout on a future carrier, which led me to the conclusion that if they do, the displacement and dimension increase means they might as well go nuclear too. So there probably won't be a future conventional carrier that sports the 003's originally designed complement of 4 catapults.

 

[banjex]

I assume that the layout of 003 was checked for its suitability by competent professionals for many thousands of hours in a flight operations laboratory.

Unless it has the stamp of approval from internet gurus, your argument is invalid. (sarcasm, pls don't hit me)