CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

[iantsai]

Any reason China doesn't have its own C2 Greyhound?

E-2 / C-2 level aircrafts were difficult to operate on Type 001 / 002 carrier. So they have lower priority than fighter aircrafts and even early warning helicopters.

But with the KJ-600s test flying in Yanliang, I think a C-2 like variant will finally be developed.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Any reason China doesn't have its own C2 Greyhound?

I think I have saw this somewhere quite a long time ago, can't remember in detail. But it does look like China's version of C-2.

Does anyone has more details about this?

 

[stannislas]

Nope, most of the time the livestream are not available for free afterwards, you have to be a Guancha member to watch them on their site if you don't catch it live. The fact that this one is available in full is a break from the norm.

ah, they just posted it

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[zhangjim]

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This is a more concise statement.
This is the vision of 2021, so we can compare it with the reality.
According to Xi Yazhou, this program was not broadcast because too much information was leaked. It was not made public until the 003 aircraft carrier was launched.
Xi Yazhou briefly introduced some design ideas of 003.The current application of nuclear power to aircraft carriers is too radical.Therefore, before the advent of nuclear powered aircraft carriers, some experimental nuclear powered ships need to be built.The practicability of the new nuclear power system needs to be tested.
The 003 aircraft carrier is designed to have more powerful combat capability than the 001/002 aircraft carrier, and must be put into use as soon as possible.
The electronic system of the new J-15B used in 003 will be more advanced, but the new generation of carrier based aircraft (perhaps the J-35) still needs to wait a long time.

 

[mangchaocs]

Because it's not as high on the priority list of everything else first.

Eventually they might develop a COD variant based off KJ-600, but it's not that urgent.

I think it might be no necessary for PLAN to have a shipborne fixed wing cargo aircraft with just a few tones load capacity.
Heavy helicopter might be more suitable.

 

[alfreddango]

if it's true that they want to build an experimental nuclear powered ship first, then they might go for another 003 in the meantime
not right away since they'll probably want to debug it first

 

[eprash]

E-2 / C-2 level aircrafts were difficult to operate on Type 001 / 002 carrier. So they have lower priority than fighter aircrafts and even early warning helicopters.

But with the KJ-600s test flying in Yanliang, I think a C-2 like variant will finally be developed.

PLA already tried that with Type 001&002 ?!

 

[iantsai]

I think it might be no necessary for PLAN to have a shipborne fixed wing cargo aircraft with just a few tones load capacity.
Heavy helicopter might be more suitable.

On US carriers the C-2s are used for VIP transportation and a more important task: to carry the turbofan engines.

The heavy helicopters like CH-53 have much less cargo weight, cruise speed and ferry range than C-2s. So C-2s are irreplaceable by helicopters.

C-2s were finally decommissioned when V-22s entered service.

 

[Helius]

Ford appears to use a very outdated mast design in comparison to 003. Chinese radar and electronic sophistication is apparent in just an image. Any reason why Ford uses so many antenna units with dome covers? It's like comparing a Soviet cruiser with a Burke here.

The domes are mostly satcoms.

Note that Early Enterprise used a very early AESA design, forgot the name of it. However, the concept was way too advanced for the technologies at that time so it was mainly experimental and abandoned.

Later Enterprise removed the early AESA and replaced it with the SPS-48, which is a frequency scanning planar radar. This radar electronically scans vertically and is rotated horizontally for 360 degree coverage and 3D acquisition. It works in the same principle as the Russian Fregat radars, except its much bigger and more powerful. This type of radar is simple and reliable, Soviets then Russians, and the PLA also has their land equivalents used as volume search radars. Nimitz continued to use the SPS-48, and there is no new radar change with US carriers until the Ford class. US did not choose to adopt air defense radar like AEGIS SPY-1 into aircraft carriers, and fixed 3D phase array didn't arrive until the Soviets with the Kiev and Kuznetsov classes with the Mars Passat. However Mars Passat radar proved to be troublesome, so they replaced it with a large frequency scanning planar radar, forgot the name of it, which also ended up inherited into the Indian Navy carrier.

Ford used both the SPY-3 and SPY-4 AESA radars but the lead ship will be the only one that will equip it. The next ship will equip the EASR, which is the baby version of the SPY-6 that is rotated around, along with the SPQ-9B, which is a small X-band planar radar that is also mechanically rotated. The second setup will be much cheaper, and both SPY-3 and SPY-4 seems to have a troubled development, and their use of Gallium Arsenide also makes them outdated compared to Gallium Nitride radars. So at this point, both SPY-3 and SPY-4 are dead ends.

I am not sure the amount of satcoms shown on the 003 island is all there is to it, as both the Liaoning and Shandong seems to have more. Its likely more will spout up as the ship is being fitted.

I'd say 003's 'mast' isn't particularly an integrated one in a strict sense, as all it houses are ESM, IFF and perhaps some search radars and misc. antennae, while the primary sensors i.e. the S- and possibly X-band radars are technically part of the island's superstructure.

So unlike the 055 where, apart from the large S-band housed below the bridge, it has a bona fide integrated mast with the rest of the radars (C, L and X, if I'm correct) inside it.

003's island is "cleaner looking", for sure, but that's more of a result of the 4-way AESA arrangement that it has, while the Ford's island is 3.


Further to that, the SPS-48 is also used on the San Antonios, housed inside the rear integrated mast -



But beginning with Fort Lauderdale and leading up to the Flight II batch of newer SAs they've reverted back to the traditional steel mast and exposed sensors -



So on the matter of integrated masts, I think it isn't the USN is averse to employing them at scale from a technical standpoint, so much as the cost-benefit doesn't seem that attractive to the Navy compared to other major navies.

 

[iantsai]

PLA already tried that with Type 001&002 ?!

No, but obviously C-2 / E-2 size KJ-600 cannot take off from the ramp of 001/002.