CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

obj 705A

Junior Member
Registered Member
this is probably how many fighters the flight deck would fit assuming a length of 316 meters and a width of 79-80 meters (a little bit more or less).

carrier flight deck1.png

carrier flight deck2.png


carrier flight deck3.png

well I tried to park them as best as possible, the commanders of the ship will have a much easier time to park the aricrafts once the J-31 enters service since then not every aircraft carried on it would have to be the huge heavy fighter that is the J-15.
 

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KampfAlwin

Junior Member
Registered Member
this is probably how many fighters the flight deck would fit assuming a length of 316 meters and a width of 79-80 meters (a little bit more or less).

View attachment 71214

View attachment 71217


View attachment 71216

well I tried to park them as best as possible, the commanders of the ship will have a much easier time to park the aricrafts once the J-31 enters service since then not every aircraft carried on it would have to be the huge heavy fighter that is the J-15.
I'm not knowledgeable in carrier ops, but is there a reason why some navies store jets on the takeoff area?
 

Intrepid

Major
I'm not knowledgeable in carrier ops, but is there a reason why some navies store jets on the takeoff area?
During the landing phase, the aircraft are parked where the catapults are. During the take-off phase, the aircraft are parked on the runway. The aircraft are therefore always towed back and forth on the flight deck between the take-off and landing phases. This is called "respotting the deck".
 

obj 705A

Junior Member
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Why is your landing strip clear of aircraft for take-offs?
you mean in the first pic? if so then it is to show how flawed it is to say that it will only carry 30-36 aircrafts so I left a good amount of empty space, in the first pic there are only 23 aircrafts with most of the flight deck left empty, so if we assume there are 13 or so aircrafts in the hangar that would mean it would have 36 aircrafts, it is highly unlikely that the PLAN will leave the carrier mostly empty like that with just 23 on the flight deck.
in the third pic there are 39 aircrafts with alot of empty room left to move the aircrafts around, it could easily fit 3 more fighters with extra space still available to manage the aircrafts around, add to that say another 14 fighters in the hangar and we would get a total of 56 fighters, there would still be a some empty space in the hangar with just 14 fighters in it.
so a much more realistic number of how many aircrafts it will carry is between 48-56 with 48 being the minimum number in peace time, and ofcourse not every aicraft would be a manned fighter, it will carry also some much smaller drones in place of the fighters so if they want to it could probably fit more than 60 aircrafts at maximum capacity.
 

davidau

Senior Member
Registered Member
this is probably how many fighters the flight deck would fit assuming a length of 316 meters and a width of 79-80 meters (a little bit more or less).

View attachment 71214

View attachment 71217


View attachment 71216

well I tried to park them as best as possible, the commanders of the ship will have a much easier time to park the aricrafts once the J-31 enters service since then not every aircraft carried on it would have to be the huge heavy fighter that is the J-15.
Ok what is the real dimensions of 003?
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Here's a list of figures I compiled, to try to get an estimate on the displacement.

I took the length and beam at waterline for various known carriers, plus whatever there's on the internet for their draft and displacement.
I am full aware of the fact some of those figures are likely not directly comparable, but there's really no way to tell which are which.
I am hoping the sheer number of various ships and the fact I am looking only for a rough estimate will overcome possible errors.

From those figures I got a coefficient value for each of the carriers. While surely not the hull shape coefficient, those values should still serve as a rough guideline. And then I applied those coefficients to the, again estimated, set of values of beam, length and draft for 003, to get a range of displacement figures.

11 m draft is really the biggest guess - for that i just copied the alleged kuznetsov draft. Most other, even bigger carriers, have very similar draft so why the heck not.

39.5 m waterline beam is my best guess judging by a range of photos back when the hull did not even reach the hangar level deck.

288 m waterline length is my best guess made based on that one photo where the shadow of the ship allowed us to observe where exactly the bow transitions into the bulbous bow which goes below water.

Anyway. I got the following set of figures:
75 000 tons if coefficient modeled after Charles de Gaulle
71 000 tons using Queen Elizabeth
64 000 tons using Kuznetsov
79 000 tons using Forrestal
72 000 tons using Kitty Hawk
77 000 tons using Enterprise
86 000 tons using Nimitz

Now, Nimitz seems an outlier, as its power train is so powerful it doesn't need to use a very efficient hull shape.
Enterprise is more interesting as it was the first nuclear fueled carrier and her whole powertrain was not really that powerful. Because of that she is at times described as using a more efficient cruiser like hull. The same could be said about CdG, which too, despite being nuclear fueled, has issues with power generation and may need a more efficient hull.

Kitty Hawk and Forrestal seem like good comparisons though, as both were powered by steam turbines powered by oil boilers. That's the expected power train the 003 will use, as far as most are expecting.

Kuznetsov too seems to be an outlier, yielding very low tonnage, but perhaps that too can be explained with a need for a VERY efficient, slender hull, as Soviets may've not had experience powering such huge ships before, so the whole powertrain would have been lacking for a heavier ship. 003 should fare better with its power train, given the Chinese experience.

That leaves us the QE carrier. I can't really explain why using its coefficient yields fairly low tonnage. If anything, I would have expected higher tonnage, due to the fact that QE doesn't need to go as fast, as it was designed to use STOVL planes. Maybe some of the public figures for QE are simply not really apples to apples kind of comparison to the rest of the carriers.

Anyway, to sum it up. Given all the above, and IF the estimated length/beam/draft figures are more or less correct - i would expect 003 to displace anywhere from low 70 thousand tons to high 70 thousand tons, at its max displacement value. Let's simplify that to around 75 thousand tons, give or take.
 

silentlurker

Junior Member
Registered Member
11 m draft is really the biggest guess - for that i just copied the alleged kuznetsov draft. Most other, even bigger carriers, have very similar draft so why the heck not.
Personally i think 003 will have a deeper draft than Kuznentsov - It will have a wider larger angled flight deck and more equipment (catapult) near the top of the ship. Without a deeper draft the ship will roll more in bad weather.
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
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Oh well ... again more for the sake of completeness than to identify any details, here are three recent but most blurry images of the Type 003 aircraft carrier taken out of an airliner during an overflight of the Jiangnan Shipyard at Shanghai,

(Images via FB)

PLN Type 003 carrier - 20210425 - 1.JPGPLN Type 003 carrier - 20210425 - 2 all.jpgPLN Type 003 carrier - 20210425 - 3.JPG
 
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