Here Henri K elaboration on the official new of the first catapult launch. I don't necessarily agree with him who characterize the EMAL as experimental
If the success of the first ground catapult of a
J-15 Chinese airplane fighter aircraft , which
, was still based only on rumors,
the article published yesterday on the Official Journal of the Chinese Army leaves no doubt now about this first full-scale test of the Chinese electromagnetic catapult, similar to the US Navy's EMALS system.
Titled "The Courage to Be a Founder of Flight Testing for the Navy", the article briefly tells the story of a pilot leader during a major test of the embedded air forces. Although the text remains deliberately unclear it has clearly indicated none of the equipment involved
We are talking about a "fighter jet of a certain developing model", under the CHENG Hai Lin (程海林), which took off at "very short distance" thanks to some "equipment". The test took place in mid-autumn, at a certain air base located in the west of Liaoning Province.
The man, a naval pilot with 2,100 hours of flying time and former deputy chief of the air force, was named pilot of a "key technology" program for aircraft carriers. at the end of 2015 and had participated since 2008 in several development projects related to Chinese aircraft carriers as a new generation of aircraft.
"A newly designed experimental apparatus", "an entirely new and most advanced equipment in the world", "engines that have not yet passed the final design validation ¹", and "visibility well below the standard "It is under all these uncertainties and looks at it from the senior officials of the military and the industrialists involved in the program that CHENG gave the green light to the personnel on the ground, from the cockpit of his aircraft, for takeoff.
The article does not fail to emphasize that the success of the test shows that "China has made a major breakthrough in a field of difficulty equipment for an aircraft carrier". The same expressions are also used to describe the development of EMALS in China.
It is not difficult now to replace all these words in quotation marks to make a last legible sentence: A J-15,
, realized at the end of 2016 its first catapulting on an experimental EMALS track, installed in the center Xincheng Carrier Pilots Training Course, which is well west of Liaoning Province.
It was learned that
end of July, signed by Chinese President XI Jin Ping himself.
Knowing that the Chinese electromagnetic catapult project was approved at the end of 2011, with a launch budget of 700 million yuan (nearly 90 million €), this institutional communication of the Chinese army has also shown us that development of EMALS in China is progressing relatively fast, as the testing unit CHENG Hai Lin was founded in late 2015, four years the project launch, for a full-scale trial in late September or early October 2016 .
It is still a little difficult to predict the timing of the Chinese navy to come. The article mentions, for example some 20 returns from CHENG after the test, to continue the development and prepare for the following tests, indicating that the Chinese EMALS catapult is still in the experimental stage today.
But one thing is certain, after its first two aircraft carriers on a springboard, says STOABAR, the Chinese navy will finally end up with aircraft carriers with catapult, steam or EMALS, as it has always asked for 30 years. Moreover, many rumors circulate about the cutting of the first sheet of the 3rd Chinese aircraft carrier in Shanghai this year.
Finally, these new elements as well as the unique photo broadcast on this first test of Chinese EMALS allow us to identify which of the two experimental catapults installed in Xincheng is electromagnetic.
Indeed, the analysis of this snapshot and the satellite images seems to confirm what we have suggested since last year, namely that it is more likely that the catapult located to the west is the EMALS, while that to the east would be steam.
The two experimental catepults in Xincheng (Image: DigitalGlobal)
A J-15 in front of the catapult EMALS, October 17, 2016 (Image: DigitalGlobal)
