PLAN Carrier Strike Group and Airwing

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

SinoSoldier said:

According to this post, Navy's second carrier, along with the initial one currently being constructed at Dalian, is being built as well. That makes two carriers, one with ski ramp and one possibly without. pop3 is a very reliable military insider.

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I'd really like to see some photos of these ships under construction. After all we've seen photos of every PLAN class ship under construction except subs..so what gives? Shown me something.. anything!

And building a carrier is no secret task.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

bd popeye said:

Franklin I agree. The media aboard a ship is sometimes a nuisance. Been there done that!

However.. why can't the PLAN use it's own photographers similar to other armed services of the World? Like the USN for instance...What's the problem? I'm assuming the PLAN is holding it's cards close to their chest.

Well as per usual we have to wait and see.

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I wonder if the PLAN does use their own photographers that people outside of China would accuse them of "faking" it or PS.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

Equation said:

I wonder if the PLAN does use their own photographers that people outside of China would accuse them of "faking" it or PS.

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I think most reasonable people would believe official pictures of carriers under construction from the PLAN.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

SinoSoldier said:

According to this post, Navy's second carrier, along with the initial one currently being constructed at Dalian, is being built as well. That makes two carriers, one with ski ramp and one possibly without. pop3 is a very reliable military insider.

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**** seems to be down so I can't really read the post myself, but if it's true it dovetails rather nicely with that report from that HK magazine.

bd popeye said:

I'd really like to see some photos of these ships under construction. After all we've seen photos of every PLAN class ship under construction except subs..so what gives? Shown me something.. anything!

And building a carrier is no secret task.

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As I said to a friend, if they're really building two they will show up in pictures eventually, maybe in another two or three years.

EDIT: Finally read post. Unless I'm missing something pop3 didn't say a thing about two carriers.

delft said:

There are good technical and financial reasons not to believe him. China has a good system to get aircraft into the air, the ski ramp. The EM cat is the preferred technology and a combination of EM cat and ski ramp would be very good on possible smaller carriers ( compare USN carriers and its America class ). Steam cats are to bridge the gap until the EM cat is developed, at a costs equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars for say five years? How many years would it take to develop the steam cats from where China is now? Perhaps more than will be necessary to complete the EM cat development.

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Unless China has continued investing in steam cats and has actually managed to get them working, which means that money has already been spent. That's what pop3 is implying.

Interestingly pop3 also states that an EMALS has already begun testing. The rail was tested in 2010, and something was launched/flown in 2011

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

latenlazy said:

**** seems to be down so I can't really read the post myself, but if it's true it dovetails rather nicely with that report from that HK magazine.

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It's back up now. Please let me know what you think.

It seems POP3 gets a lot of attention whenever he speaks, so he must be some kind of insider. I wonder what his track record is on 'predicting' PLAN related matters.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

by78 said:

It's back up now. Please let me know what you think.

It seems POP3 gets a lot of attention whenever he speaks, so he must be some kind of insider. I wonder what his track record is on 'predicting' PLAN related matters.

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Darn it...nevermind, I still couldn't get in.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

by78 said:

It's back up now. Please let me know what you think.

It seems POP3 gets a lot of attention whenever he speaks, so he must be some kind of insider. I wonder what his track record is on 'predicting' PLAN related matters.

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Read my edit

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

delft said:

There are good technical and financial reasons not to believe him. China has a good system to get aircraft into the air, the ski ramp. The EM cat is the preferred technology and a combination of EM cat and ski ramp would be very good on possible smaller carriers ( compare USN carriers and its America class ). Steam cats are to bridge the gap until the EM cat is developed, at a costs equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars for say five years? How many years would it take to develop the steam cats from where China is now? Perhaps more than will be necessary to complete the EM cat development.

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According to POP3, China begun developing prototypes for steam cats since the 1980s, same period when the development of the recovery system started. It was also around the same period of time China started training "pilot captains" for carriers.

Also, one J8 was modified to take off using steam cat during the 1980s as well, and it succeeded.

The research and development never start just when we need to install them. They started long long ago. The same goes for many other Chinese military advancements, what people see is that China suddenly came up with a whole range of modern ships, planes, and all the sub-systems, but the hard truth is that the development started way back and many of the pioneer researchers and scientists didn't live to see the fruition.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

Interesting, as of late, a flurry of info. has shown up about the steam catapult program.

Here is a certain Mr. Zhang Xueqing, an expert in hydraulic systems. He was responsible for Project '858', which is the carrier catapult program. He was the man sent to examine the steam catapult onboard the decommissioned Australian carrier.

Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

Not sure if already posted !! ... anyway nice shots (even without J-15s)