PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

kwaigonegin said:

There is a reason why supercarriers don't go past a certain size or length and it's because once you past a certain threshold in size and weight the return on investment is diminished and the asset goes on a diminishing return in capabilities and effectiveness. Heck can something like this even transit the Suez?

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Not a unnecessarily wide catamaran configured like this, but the Suez will easily accommodate single hulled supercarriers twice the displacement of USS Nimitz. The so called Suezmax - the largest ship that can transit Suez canal - is 50 meter wide and 20 meter deep. USS Nimitz's underwater dimensions are a comparatively puny 40 meters wide and 11 meters deep.

The real reason why supercarriers appears to have came up to the size of Nimitz and stopped is because Nimitz is the largest hull that could be reasonably accommodated at a number of existing naval docks, mostly dating from around and just after WWII. With the absence of competing supercarriers from other countries, there hadn't been enough incentive to spend to money to upgrade all these docks to accommodate bigger warships. As a matter of fact, USS Enterprise was considered to be the largest hydrodyamaically optimal carrier hull that could fit in those docks. When Nimitz was designed, the designers consciously accepted a suboptimal hull form and slightly reduced top speed in order to fit a larger displacement within the same length and beam as the Enterprise.

Franklin said:

I didn't think that 24 Flankers was possible for next year but a air wing of 12 to 16 Flankers should be possible for next year. And is there any news about that long distance journey of the Liaoning that supposed to take place at the end of the year? The end of the year is now very close.

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Franklin have you got a update to date list of the sea deployments?

The US Navy has studied the question regarding aircaft carrier size and efficiency repeatedly and keeps coming back to the same solution - something about the size of a Nimitz class nuclear is the most optimum and cost-effective.

A Nimitz-size hull and deck gives an optimally high sortie rate, cuples it with a optimally high surge rate, the ability to conduct flight operations in almost any weather and at night, and has the capacity to allow for a large and diverse air wing...among other considerations both technical and financial.

Smaller carriers, around the Midway in size, were heavily considered during the Carter administration years, instead of more Nimitz class carriers. Upon studying it in depth at the time, the inescapable conclusion was that for 2/3rds the cost of a Nimitz carrier, they were at best only going to get 1/2 the capability. So, the decision was made to continue with the large nuclear carriers.

At the same time, even larger carriers have been looked at, but they to also become constrained. You reach a point of diminishing returns as your deck size and hanger sizes grow because you have to move the aircraft longer distances and you begin to lose efficuiency. You may spend 200% for something much larger and only get 175% of the Nimitz/Ford efficieny/capability.

Anyhow, a GREAT book for carrier design and a lot of the considerations is: "U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An illustrated Design History," by Norman Friedman. It is dated (1983), but very good on the ramifications and studies up to that date, which included the super carriers.

asif iqbal said:

Franklin have you got a update to date list of the sea deployments?

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The list remains the same as the last update. She has returned to Qingdao on 21 september and stayed there ever since. That's about 20 days now.

Sea trials under shipyard

first sea trial (10 august 2011 – 13 august 2011) (3 days)
second sea trial (28 november 2011 – 10 december 2011) (12 days)
third sea trial (20 december 2011 – 29 december 2011) (9 days)
fourth sea trial (7 january 2012 – 16 january 2012) (9 days)
fifth sea trial (19 april 2012 – 30 april 2012) (11 days)
sixth sea trial (7 may 2012 – 16 may 2012) (9 days)
seventh sea trial (23 may 2012 – 1 june 2012) (9 days)
eighth sea trial (7 june 2012 – 21 june 2012 ) (14 days)
ninth sea trial (6 july 2012 – 30 july 2012) (24 days)
tenth sea trial (27 august 2012 – 30 august 2012) (3 days)

under shipyard total 103 days at sea in 1 year and 20 days

Sea trials under PLAN (commissioned on 25 september 2012)

first sea trial (11 october 2012 – 30 october 2012) (19 days)
second sea trail (12 november 2012 – 25 november 2012) (13 days)
third sea trial (11 june 2013 - 3 july 2013) (22 days)
fourth sea trial (15 august 2013 - 23 august 2013) (8 days)
fifth sea trial (1 september 2013 - 21 september 2013) (20 days)

under PLAN total 82 days at sea in 11 months and 26 days

total days at sea 185 days in 2 years and 1 month and 11 days

Franklin, thanks for posting the at sea periods for CV-16. It puts things right out in the open.

xinhui just posted this @ CDF :

Hyperwarp said:

xinhui just posted this @ CDF :

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It appears the j-15 is taking off from the waist position, as I suspected will become part of normal operating procedure when Liaoning is operational

chuck731 said:

It appears the j-15 is taking off from the waist position, as I suspected will become part of normal operating procedure when Liaoning is operational

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It is not a normal take-off, it is a touch and go.

Same discussion: *clickme*

chuck731 said:

It appears the j-15 is taking off from the waist position, as I suspected will become part of normal operating procedure when Liaoning is operational

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No. That (again) is either a touch and go, or a wave off. The J-15 will not take off from the waist position over that sponson. It is not designed for that, or intended. Same is true on the Russian Kuznetsov with their SU-33S..

As has been shown numerous times, the waist launch goes up over the ski-jump.

Sorry for the amatuer question... is it possible to have two ski ramps on a carrier? That way you could launch two aircrafts at the same time.