Blackstone
Brigadier
Don't forget ski ramps reduce valuable deck space for aircrafts, so it doesn't make sense to have both cats and ramp.
PLAN Carrier Construction
- Thread starter escobar
- Start date
Don't forget ski ramps reduce valuable deck space for aircrafts, so it doesn't make sense to have both cats and ramp.
Yes a ski ramp cannot break down.
I spent 6 of my 20 USN years at sea aboard carriers.. I never served abroad any ship that could not launch aircraft due to catapult malfunction. Period. I've witnessed thousands of "Cat Shots". never seen a failure.
And you cannot launch a fully laden aircraft with a ski ramp. No you cannot.
My own personal opinion is that the PLAN is not ready to go cats in the time frame they are planning their 2nd carrier.
They definitely want to go to catapults and intend to go there. But there may be trade offs with their schedule and planning for naval aviation introduction that they are also not willing to make at this time in order to wait.
But, they have a STOBAR carrier now and are developing doctrine and policy associated with it. If they are not prepared to go CATS now, they will most probably do the following:
- Build their next carrier as an improved Varyag/Liaoning design. A design that from the outset will have probably a larger hanger and improve the number of aircraft they can maintain and shelter there, could very possibly have a smaller island and improve the number of aircraft they can spot on the deck, and may provide for a pair of waste cats (but not install them) when their cat systems is ready.
By doing this they will accomplish several very positive things right now.
1) They will introduce their own indegenous carrier sooner and get that experience under their belt.
2) They will have a second carrier where their maintenance and training is maximized with the Liaoning and improve the total cost of ownership over 30-40 years for both carriers and that will translate into a lot of money.
3) They will be able to continue to develop and produce J-15s without any significant structural change to the front gear to allow for CAT launch, and therefore minimize any schedule impact to current J-15 build schedules.
3) They will be able (if they so desire) to design in a provision for catapault evolution into this 2nd carrier so that at a later date they can install those cats either to test them and improve them for their enventual CATOBAR carrier, or, should they go ahead and produce a CATOBAR carrier first, be in a position to bring their second carrier up to catapault operation and proficiency through its next major refit.
All of these are very positive things.
If the catapaults are absolutely ready now and they are sure of it, they may elect to go there now...but I do not think they are ready now. And even if they were, they may well elect to not go there yet and get these positive benefits for the time being by making it a hybrid.
But if they are not ready for prime time catapult installation now...and I do not believe they are (that the PLAN is confortable with going into live production with their cat technology at this point)...then this path for an improved Liaoning STOBAR design provides the PLAN with a very cost effective path to continue their carrier and naval aviation development without waiting several more years for a complete CATOBAR carrier design.
My guess is that within two years we will know definitively which way the PLAN is moving.
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asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
I love the name "cats and traps"
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I think you missed the entire point of my post.. Like I said before, I believe it has more to so with planning than with technological abilities or lack thereof. PLAN can have catapults up the wazoo since last year and I believe their next carrier still WON'T be a CATOBAR.
Like many here, I believe that PLAN's planning involves building a STOBAR all on their own first before building a CATOBAR and I also strongly believe that this STOBAR of theirs will be very similar to Liaoning with slight modifications to the interior, sensors, wiring, plumbing etc BUT no major redesign of the hull itself. It MAY have waist cats but extremely doubtful they will have cats on the bow for the reasons I mentioned in my earlier post.
Blitzio posted an article from Russia kuznetsov CV claim Su-33 full loaded launch from back angle deck position with ship charging at 25 knots is able to launch from ramp.
Yes. I agreed fully with wat you said. However, US - unlike the Chinese, had decades of catapult operation experience, the USN is one of the most refined carrier operation SOP (and that is not just pilots training, but logistical support, maintenance, etc.
The Chinese is very very new in this area, only having an operational aircraft carrier (which happened to be a ski jump carrier) for a very short period of time, not even 1 year.
As many would have argued that there is no or very insignificant different in launching an aircraft using Catapult and launching an aircraft using the ski-jump, but pilots training is only one part of carrier operation. So I think it make lots of sense if the Chinese wanted to take things slower, design a ski-jump carrier, with maybe one to two catapult so that the carrier can be launched into the sea almost immediately after commissioning, with minimal training required and make that carrier operational very quickly. At the same time trained her onboard crew members and more pilots to catapult operation, then these new group of pilots and crews could be deployed on the next carrier that would be full CATOBAR carrier.
That is a safe way of doing things, rather than jumped directly to something new, and needed time again to get her crew familiarise with the new system.
Things would be different though, if the Liaoning is a CATOBAR carrier right from the start, then the next carrier will immediately be a CATOBAR without much issues as the crew trained on Liaoning will be familiar with the system and SOP in operating a CATOBAR carrier.
Finally (I know I have been droning on and on like an old man - which I actually am), was that (and I believe Popeye, you would agree with me here too), an aircraft carrier operation don't just end at flying an aircraft off and land on the carrier. There are other operating procedure, from preparing an aircraft to fly, firefighting, operating and maintaining of the catapults, etc, etc.
As to Xian mentioning that the Chinese could train in an Ulyanovsk design, well... of course they can, they can train anywhere anyone would allow them to, even in Brazil carrier, French carrier or even the US carrier if the US, Brazilian and French allows.
However, unless the catapult designs are totally the same, maintenance and operating procedure might be very different. But of course, this coming from someone who only watch an aircraft carrier from photo and not actually boarded or see one close up before, I might be full of craps. What I said is from my experience with smaller machinery and factory operation whereby it is fully normal to build a factory from what the management are familiar in... then from there we upgrade, improvise and expand our operation rather than jump immediately into a totally new system.
I really need to see a better argument for this beyond "we haven't seen them launch a fully loaded aircraft off a ski jump" -- apply a little critical thinking and one can come up with many better reasons for why we haven't seen it (lack of funds due to russian navy barely able to keep their Su-33 fleet maintained, etc).
I posted that article from ages ago saying how you could launch a follow loaded Su-33 from positions 1 and 2 on kuznetsov IF the ship had a headwind of about 30 knots.
You cannot launch fixed wing aircraft like E-2Ds of ski jumps (at least not without making the flight deck inpractical), but under most circumstances you can launch planes off a ski jump with a decent payload or even near max payload and fuel load.
What catapults allow is the additional flexibility of not requiring as much headwind go launch a plane, and the ability to launch fixed wing AEWC.
this dogma that ski jumps cannot launch fully loaded or practically loaded fighters has never been properly challenged and looked at quantitatively.
Even on vikramditya, you can see IN Mig-29Ks loaded with some A2G ordinance and heavy fuel tanks, etc.
Catapults are superior to ski jumps, no doubt about it, but both can launch heavily loaded fighters depending on headwind as well as the type of fighter they are launching.
To divide up the number of things that can go wrong while you're familiarizing yourself with the operations of a carrier. STOBAR is a less risky option where you can gradually get your first air wing and crew trained and still have something operational. If you started off with a higher risk option like a CATOBAR, you not only increase the difficulty of learning how to operate a carrier with a more complex technology, but you increase the chances of sidelining your entire carrier training program if something goes wrong and your ship ends up needing to sit in a dry dock for repairs. Making a full CATOBAR carrier your third hull not only gives you greater experience to deal with the increasing complexity, but also reduces the number of unknowns you have to deal with. It also prevents your training program from stalling if something breaks, because you have other hulls to continue training in the aspects not related to the broken technology.
Remember, introducing the technology is only the first part of a very long process to developing carrier capabilities. Even if you could build the technology it takes time to learn how to operate it, and then even more time to scale that knowledge. Thus, both planning and risk management are necessary components to something as ambitious as China's carrier programme.
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kwaigonegin
Colonel
I think under very ideal control conditions it is possible to launch an aircraft fully loaded with a ski ramp HOWEVER for all intent and purposes you can't ( I think that's what popeye was refering to).
With a catapult you can launch anytime anywhere w/o so many restrictions.. with ski ramp you can't unless you have that perfect weather, wind speed etc but even then you SHOULDN'T.
You are risking unecessary safety as well. Besides the last thing you want going through a naval aviator's head is him sweatin bullets as he's about to launch because he knows his bird is carrying tons more ordnance than recommended for launch. He may overcorrect, make mistakes or just poop in his pants
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