asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
My bet is first home built will be STOBAR
Then comes CATOBAR
Then comes EMALS
Then comes CATOBAR
Then comes EMALS
PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)
- Thread starter bd popeye
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I think the likelihood of 001A from DL being STOBAR is very high, the question is whether 002 will use steam or EM cats.
Engineer
Major
What I am seeing here is someone trying to move the goal post. Confidence was beaming through a statement made by one of the officials. Someone on this forum is not happy with that, asking for engineering data knowing full well it is impossible to get.
Whether or not China has a working EMALS is not the question one should be asking. In fact, questions related to technologies shouldn't come up. The main stumbling block lies with institutions that worked on steam catapult, not wanting the fruit of their labour going down the drain, not wanting future revenues disappearing.
The trend in naval architecture is moving toward full electric ships. It will be wise for China to not use steam catapult even if one is available now. Putting a carrier into water one or two years earlier is not worth getting stuck with steam catapults for another fifty years. Swapping out steam with electrical system, even if doable, would put the carrier out of service for a few years, meaning there is just no gain in the long run.
As to the guy who keeps on advocating fitting a catapult into a curved ramp, just stop. That is nothing but a fanboy fantasy drawn up by people on Chinese forums with no engineering background. Those people can't even join a bunch of A4 papers together to give you a straight paper rod. Their words are not worth repeating here.
Whether or not China has a working EMALS is not the question one should be asking. In fact, questions related to technologies shouldn't come up. The main stumbling block lies with institutions that worked on steam catapult, not wanting the fruit of their labour going down the drain, not wanting future revenues disappearing.
The trend in naval architecture is moving toward full electric ships. It will be wise for China to not use steam catapult even if one is available now. Putting a carrier into water one or two years earlier is not worth getting stuck with steam catapults for another fifty years. Swapping out steam with electrical system, even if doable, would put the carrier out of service for a few years, meaning there is just no gain in the long run.
As to the guy who keeps on advocating fitting a catapult into a curved ramp, just stop. That is nothing but a fanboy fantasy drawn up by people on Chinese forums with no engineering background. Those people can't even join a bunch of A4 papers together to give you a straight paper rod. Their words are not worth repeating here.
I was thinking more of a STOBAR/CATOBAR hybrid (i.e. catapults on the other two take-off positions), I remember that being discussed before. Is that plan out of vogue these days? I might've missed these developments.
You mean waist catapults? I think it isn't a terrible idea, but I'm not sure if it is worth integrating steam catapults onto the waist if they're only going to be there for 001A and switch to EMALS on 002.
I think the only reason 001A will feature steam cats on the waist is if 002 is also going to feature steam cats, and if PLAN are not confident enough in their steam cats in that they want to have the back up option of launching from ski jump in case they malfunction as well (which would explain why they don't just have a flat deck with bow cats as well)
But we haven't heard anything about 001A having waist cats in rumours, and like engineer said it might not be worth developing steam cats for only one or two carriers and having to support them for the rest of the carrier's service, or having to expensively refit them with EMALS in future. The supporting machinery to supply and power steam cats will also add an extra layer of complexity that I'm not sure the PLAN are willing to go for with their first indigenous carrier.
This is the way I currently try to rationalize it:
001A from DL, one unit: a relatively lower risk first indigenous carrier that tries to fix many of the inherent smaller deficiencies with Liaoning's internal structure and external layout such as elevators, hangar, flight deck shape and size, berthing, arrangement of internal facilities, etc, while retaining consistency with 001 in terms overall size and flight deck launch and recover, to allow the same planes to operate from 001A without need for modification. Basically I see it as applying modern chinese construction techniques and more modern internal design schemes onto the same overall hull dimensions with some degree of external modification to flight deck, island and maybe hull shape.
002 from JN, at least one unit: applies the same modern improvements and internal design schemes seen on 001A, but also they integrate a new layer of complexity by adding catapults (steam or EMALS) and removing the ski jump, and possibly on a meaningfully larger hull, and depending on the type of catapult, new propulsion type as well. Crew will be able to apply many of the same principles from 001 and 001A onto 002, especially in regards to flight deck operations, but the aviation industry will need time to produce new variants of aircraft or new aircraft entirely to take advantage of catapults.
i expect maybe two 002 units to be produced (quite possibly with meaningful differences between the units), until PLAN is comfortable enough to work on a true nuclear powered supercarrier.
I see 001 as a training vessel, while 001A as a tech demonstrator. I don't think it makes any less sense to have one ship with steam catapult than one (or two if you count Liaoning) ship with STOBAR. Given that the PLAN is trying to make up for 100 years of experience in constructing and operating carriers, why not have a Frankenstein ship like my proposed 001A, a modular ship that could be a testbed for all future carrier-based technologies, to serve as an TD/training ship? 001 cannot be that ship as it's simply not constructed to be easily upgradable (e.g. modular), but we can have a ship constructed specifically for this purpose. If China aims to have a sizeable, advanced carrier force, this may be a worthy investment.
Because they may need the real capabilities ASAP...
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