Equation
Lieutenant General
Size of any future aircraft depends on the door rough opening itself, not so much as to how many door(s) it has.
China Coast Guard and Patrol vessels
- Thread starter crobato
- Start date
Size of any future aircraft depends on the door rough opening itself, not so much as to how many door(s) it has.
Range, endurance, command capabilities, crew comfort, aviation capabilities... and of course the ability to act as deterrence in territorial disputes.
joshuatree
Captain
What's to say they won't have such purposes in the future? China's business in nuclear plants in foreign countries have been on the uptick. Not far fetched to see them reprocessing nuclear fuel waste.
That is one of the tasks.
Clearly such long endurance cutters can and are used for other things as well.
Port security for example:
A Chinese company "Landbridge" has secured the rights to operate the Port of Darwin, but I doubt whether the Australian Government would permit a boat like that to be sent down there for work detail.
That's exactly what I was saying. I would prefer one large hanger door to two narrow ones. Coz, one large door can give access to large or small aircrafts, whereas by having two narrow hanger door only small to medium aircrafts can get access to the hanger.
It all depends on the vessel and its function.
For example on a Burke DDG, you actually have two hangers, each with its individual door. This provides several important positive features for the multi-role destroyer:
Two hangers, two doors for Burke Class DDGs
1) You have two ASW/SAR/Surface Search helos on those DDGs which allows for much more continuous coverage in critical situations in any of those three areas.
2) It maximizes the use of space, not wasting any.
3) Very critically, it provides for much better protection in the event of fire, battle damage, etc. Where one open hanger allows the damage/fire/danger to more easily spread, two separate ones allows for the very real prospect of containing it.
Now, this costs more to achieve, but for the larger vessels like the Burke, where you do not need the larger open hanger spaces, it can all work for good.
Take the LCS. It has a much larger, open hanger. Why? Well because its mission calls for having to accommodate either a large mine-hunting helicopter, or larger troop carriers. Therefore the two hanger, two smaller door approach cannot work. So the Freedom class ships have a single larger door, and the Independence class ships have a larger door, and another regular sized door, both opening into the large hanger.
One large hanger, one large door for Freedom Class LCS
This holds for the large LPDs as well, like the San Antonio and the Type 071. In the san Antonio case, they have a single large door. The Type 071 has two large doors. They simply have a requirement for much larger helicopters which require larger doors and open space, making smaller doors and individual space something that doe snot fit the requirement.
One large hanger, two large doors for Chinese Type 071
The US larger National Security Coast Guard Cutter takes the path of the Burke. They do not need larger type helos to fulfill the envisioned missions. But can easily use two Seahawk or Dolphin sized helos works well, maximizing the available space for other matters, and minimize potential damage. So they have two doors and two hangers.
Two hangars, two doors for US Coast Guard Berthold class Cutter
The new large Chinese Coast Guard cutters, on the other hand, clearly intends a different mission for their helos. My guess is that they intend large humanitarian assistance, or evacuation type operations using larger helicopters...so they will want the larger door and more hanger space.
One large hangar, one large door for Chinese 12k Coast Guard Cutter
It will be interesting to see what the Type 055 large destroyer has. My guess would be that they trend more towards what the US does with the Burke...but depending on how they intend to use their helicopters, and what size helicopter they decide they need to do it, the may also use a single larger hanger with a larger door.
Nice. They have these Type 053H2G cutters out on patrol now.
Here's a higher resolution version.
The four Type 76A dual-37 mm guns mounts are a decent Coast Guard Cutter armament for a vessel of this size.
With the helo pad and hanger, they are going to be very nice cutters.
I believe four of these Type 053H2G vessels have been transferred to the Chinese Coast Guard. Here's another pic of one during refit, showing the hanger and armament.
...and receiving its Coast Guard paint job (they are working on the pennant number here):
