Geez. Just think of things this way. Are you getting MORE capability with the new system or LOSING capability?
In China's case being able to launch the J-15T with full combat load in the EMALS is MORE capability.
In the US's case being able to NOT launch any of the things they can already launch in existing prior carriers is LOSING capability.
So sorry, but the client's standards are not the same and cannot be the same.
The US Navy had plenty of other options. Like refurbishing one of their existing carriers for one more cycle. Pausing the construction of the Ford until the kinks were sorted out. They chose to continue. And double down on it.
I am not asking for the US Navy to test the EMALS with their non-existent drone refueling aircraft MQ-25A and delay the entry into service of the carrier because of that either. Nor do I expect the PLAN to stop construction on the unreasonable expectation of an aircraft which, at the time, probably had not even been downselected yet i.e. J-XY.
There is a limit to how independent you can make each element of a program without impacting the overall system design negatively in some way. I think China thus far has chosen a better program approach with 003 than the US did with the Ford class given their resource base. But there are still unknowns. And yes the 003 was a compromise. The design was changed late in to EMALS. But at least they paused it long enough that most of the risk should have been retired. Emphasis on should. The proof will be in the tasting.
China still has huge gaps to fill in terms of the aviation wings on all their carriers and LHDs. This will require a massive effort over the next decade and the US Navy's air complement is not a stationary target.
So what you are saying, is that in terms of expectations of program management, milestones, and concurrency, is that we should have different/lower standards for the PLAN's concurrency of EM catapults and airwing testing, compared to the USN's concurrency of EMALS and airwing testing, because of what capabilities they had prior?
That's certainly a unique argument, and one that I've never come across before.
Frankly, your original post 8434 seemed to be discussing the management and concurrency of the Ford's EM catapult and airwing on its own faults and merits.
Certainly, all of the discussion about 003's EM catapults and the development of its airwing over the last few years all discussed it on the basis of their own merits and the ability to prosecute a successful program in general, rather than accepting that we should accept concurrency and immaturity on the basis of 003 simply being a step up from the STOBAR CV-16/17.
In any case, I think you do now accept that your original post in 8434 was factually incorrect. Perhaps you had meant to make a different, less ambitious argument in that post, which is fine.
But the words written were not true.
Not to debate what someone said or didn't say in their postings, but on the
actual relevant matter to this topic, I don't think the PLAN's EMALS programme should be viewed with different standards to that of the USN simply on the perceived notion that just because -
- the PLAN is 'gaining capabilities' with their EMALS, or just catapults, period, steam or magnetic; and
- that the USN is 'losing capabilities' with theirs,
that their respective expectations attribute to this differing standards, and that concurrency for one is not the same as concurrency for the other, or, in Blitzo's words, that it is "hypocritical and selective".
The PLAN's expectations from their EMALS could very well be different to that of the USN, not least because of the obvious difference in intended airwings for either navies. Unlike the US EMALS programme, we can all agree we don't have as detailed of a timeline for the PLAN's EMALS testing history. We simply don't know precisely what the PLAN had tested or not tested with their ground rigs and the milestones therefrom,
as directly compared to the milestones from the US side in the same timeframe.
On the face of it, an argument can be made the PLAN could be in 'worse' spot than the USN where concurrency goes, on the simple fact that none of the intended airframes for 003, as far as we know, are in serial production, let alone in active service. As such we have no evidence whether the PLAN had already tested any final production examples of J-15B, J-XY, KJ-600 etc. other than what few clues we have like the confirmed testing of the J-15T.
But all that i.e. the availability of airframes, is not particular to the readiness of the EMALS itself. An argument can also be made, like gelgoog mentioned, that for all we know the PLAN had indeed tested at least pre-production examples of each on the land-based EMALS, at the very least the J-15T,
before re-design and construction/modification on 003's deck had begun.
This is evidently in contrast to the USN's timeline for their own land tests, as already discussed and we can also all agree, that has shown testing for their airwing,
which had all long since been in service or readiness, did not begin until well after construction on the Ford, especially with the EMALS as an integral part of its design from the very beginning, mind, had already begun in earnest.
So if one were to argue concurrency, the PLAN may have a tougher hill to climb for having to tackle not just the EMALS and 003's re-design thereof at the same time, but also the airwing itself that both will accommodate; whereas the USN doesn't have that "excuse" in the airwing department for not testing them on their ground rigs before Ford's construction was already well underway, let alone finalising her design work in the first place.
Going back to the matter of applying a different standard on PLAN EMALS vis-a-vis USN EMALS, I don't think it would necessarily be 'hypocritical' to view each with their own faults and merits like Blitzo said, not least because of the inherent differences in realities for either programmes, despite their also inherent similarity that both are in fact EMALS. It can be as apples-to-apples or apples-to-oranges as we want to make them.
I reckon one of the simple outcomes we can infer when the PLAN gets around to properly testing the EMALS on the 003, in order to attempt to settle this debate, is to look at its eventual MCBCF as compared to the PLAN's own requirement of acceptable MCBCF. If the PLAN requirement is lower or higher than that of the USN's 4,000+ between failures (US EMALS failed every 400 cycles), then this apples-to-apples argument would be somewhat moot as the expectations and resulting standards would indeed be different.
Even if we were to bring concurrency into the debate still, all we have to see is whether the PLAN will suffer from the same ten-fold deficiency in mean cycles between critical failures against their own required standard, as the USN did.
