CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Barefoot

New Member
Registered Member
Why censor the stern? Doesn't seem like there would be any secret tech there.
I had wondered that myself, seemed a bit odd.

I am tempted to try and say something amusing about some broadcasters being sensitive about bare bums being shown, or even make mention of the 'watershed' time - but i'll probably get warned for doing that so i won't go down that path.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on it.

Seriously though, and please excuse my ignorance, but where is she headed to now to be fitted out?
 

by78

General
Head-on view.

52154996629_9db1e92771_o.jpg
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Congratulations to China on their latest and greatest-ever Carrier. A phenomenal achievement indeed.

That said, it is necessary for some posters here to be humble and not try to act as if the Americans have been making stupid design decisions for their Carriers and that China has built a perfect Carrier on its very first attempt.

For example, a couple of posters have said that Americans designing additional lifts on the port side is unnecessary ("US has an odd obsession with having a lift on port side") without realizing that it is for redundancy against wartime damage to the starboard elevators. Also, having an elevator that allows for planes to also exit the port side of the hangar greatly facilitates (you do not have to turn the parked aircraft's nose to the other side) aircraft flow when more aircrafts are needed on the deck and in quick succession. You cannot design a Carrier assuming that it won't be hit during wartime.

Also, catapult failture rates are greater than what is acknowledged. Even on a 4 catapult American Carrier, to keep 3 working at all times is a huge ask. In Fujian's case, PLAN would be lucky to have 2 working at all times during wartime when intense cyclic launches would be required.

So, while Fujian is a fantastic achievement by any standard, it is still the penultimate step for PLAN towards a true 4-catapult, 3/4 lift, 75 aircraft air-wing nuclear-powered Supercarrier.
Come now, I think PLAN and even hobbyist like us all understand that having a lift on the port side is for redundancy reasons. The point of Shilao demonstrating many CVV proposals was to show that nearly all of them insists on a lift on the port side, even for designs that call for two lifts. In the book he was showing there was only one proposal that had two lifts, both on the starboard side:
e2315693dc6f9a59de353d59c132276f6543ac7.gif
Two lifts and two catapults.

The other proposals all had various number of lifts and catapults in different combinations, all of them had a port side lift:
CVVb.jpg
CVV-1976.jpg
It's clear that USN thinks this redundancy is very important, even for small carriers with two lifts. But just because USN weighs this requirement very highly does not mean PLAN do so too, and in the case of Fujian here were the decision was made to stick with two lifts we can then infer that PLAN believes more deck space is actually more important for them.
 

zyun8288

Junior Member
I think we do not need to spend too much effort to find reasons or even defend a particular design decision of a super complex system, like 003 AC which is normally the result of many compromises.
I’d say 2 lifts is good enough until the 3 lift version comes up. Just like people said before, aircraft carrier is floating coffin until China has one, Ski jump is good enough until we have a flat top, stealth fighters are overhyped and J8 can deal with them until we have J20, etc…
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
so basically, work is still being done on them and it's better with the covers as it also protects the equipment from the weather, and perhaps stops others spying on the work while the catapults are still being installed.

thanks and could you provide a translation of the signs

i still cannot believe how China has mastered the EMALS when the USN is having so much trouble

unbelievable
 
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