PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

The length of the facility is just way too short to be rocket sled site anyway.

I just noticed that by78's picture is actually a different angle of the same facility in the article, and was taken from a plane.


by78 do you know where that picture came from. If we find the source we might be able to pinpoint where the location of that facility might be.

by78 said:

Here are a few more photos from F Y J S threads having to do with Chinese EMALS. Some of these might not be new.

The last one could be Chinese, as it doesn't resemble any American EMALS photos on the web.

By the way, why does sinodefence blank out F Y J S with '****'?

Edit note: removed a photo which turned out to have nothing to do with EMALS.

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latenlazy said:

I just noticed that by78's picture is actually a different angle of the same facility in the article, and was taken from a plane.


by78 do you know where that picture came from. If we find the source we might be able to pinpoint where the location of that facility might be.

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Don't know where exactly, but I was under the impression that's the facility near Shanghai. The width of that river along with the heavy barge traffic also favor the Shanghai hypothesis.

Also notice the photo taken from the plane is an older one compared to the satellite shot, since the latter shows additional facilities.

I will dig around more to find out if a location or coordinates are available. Will post those if found.

latenlazy said:

I just noticed that by78's picture is actually a different angle of the same facility in the article, and was taken from a plane.


by78 do you know where that picture came from. If we find the source we might be able to pinpoint where the location of that facility might be.

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See my reply 1808.

google maps, for the lazy

latenlazy said:

If only China were a smaller country . It's possible, maybe even probable, that if the image above isn't the site where they're testing their EMALS the proof of concept and full scale were indoor models, and they've either yet to construct an outdoor facility for testing aircraft, or are/have just finished one. The problem for us is that there are A LOT of places they could build such a facility to perform the testing, and we probably won't see one built at the Naval Training site until well after the technology is ready for installation on a carrier. As you mentioned, getting coordinates on that picture would be very helpful, if it is indeed Chinese.

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Indeed.

I've already replied with the coordinates for the supposed test facility -- the problem is some people have pointed out it may be a rocket sled test site, however I think it looks very comprehensive with multiple smaller roof enclosed areas for actual catapults of various lengths, and perhaps the "longer" part of it is just blank room for testing of future catapults or something.

That was my theory when we heard about both DL and JNCX. Thankfully unlike with an EMALS facility we can confirm that rumour within the next few years, since you can't hide the construction of a carrier.

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True, but we might have to wait a few years + x, with x being the amount of time between confirming a carrier is under construction and discerning whether the carrier is STOBAR or CATOBAR.

Are you saying that we'll believe it when CCTV does a special programme, or that CCTV has already done a special programme?

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I think he's saying he'l believe it once CCTV does a programme on it... Which I think will take a while lol

Bltizo said:

I think he's saying he'l believe it once CCTV does a programme on it... Which I think will take a while lol

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You should know all too well that things from China's forums are usually very dodgy...it's better to hold everything with suspicion until there're other more authoritative channels come along to verify or deny whatever in question.

MwRYum said:

You should know all too well that things from China's forums are usually very dodgy...it's better to hold everything with suspicion until there're other more authoritative channels come along to verify or deny whatever in question.

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On the contrary, things on China's military forums are often the first public place on earth where new developments about PLA toys come out. It's up to us to sift the gold from the sand.

The real question is whether this article is legit.


(And you, should know that if we wait for "authoritative channels" to verify or deny, we will be waiting many impractical years (if not eternity) when evidence might already have been standing in front of us, doing the can-can...)

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Anyway, here are some old pictures from yesteryear of the site... One can go on google earth to skim through the development of the facility, whatever it is.

Because we have a scale to measure distance in the satellite photo, I used that to find the length of the fatter of the two buildings in the picture from the plane (which are behind the newer white building in the satellite photo). That building is about 115 meters long. The river is maybe 25-33% wider than the length of the building, so the river should be about 140 to 150 meters wide at that particular section, assuming no effects from distortion and perspective (which there very likely is). From the satellite photo, the track would have to be at least around 575 meters long, and maybe a little longer. The photo from the plane doesn't corroborate this, but there are obvious perspective effects there, so it's an unreliable measure of length. That said, the picture from the plane verifies that the track terminates at the same point as the end of the last rectangular patch running along the length of the track (There are only two green patches in the satellite photo because the first one is where the white building was built).

If we can pinpoint a general location, these are the general criteria which we could use to find the facility.

EDIT: Or Blitzo can post the coordinates. But hey, at least I put an estimate for the length of the track...

latenlazy said:

EDIT: Or Blitzo can post the coordinates.

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Lol.

Unfortunately even being able to pinpoint is location isn't that useful, because we don't really know what exactly it is. I'm fairly confident it is the catapult testing facility, but its strange layout makes me wonder.

Certainly if it weren't military or important, then we should be able to baidu it.

Bltizo said:

Lol.

Unfortunately even being able to pinpoint is location isn't that useful, because we don't really know what exactly it is. I'm fairly confident it is the catapult testing facility, but its strange layout makes me wonder.

Certainly if it weren't military or important, then we should be able to baidu it.

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I took a look. Whatever it is, it's covered. I looked closer and what looks like the track is actually a very long building, so it can't be a site to actually do test launches. That also means it's not a rocket sled though.