CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Volpler11

Junior Member
Registered Member
It looks like the overhang is being put on now, no doubt about that. But I think the ship is large enough that they need to do a lower row of modules first, later followed by an upper row for the flight deck.

The overhang on 002 is thin enough (only 3 decks or so?) that it only needed one layer of modules. But as 003 has 10 decks like a USN carrier, it's probable that the overhang is 5 decks tall, so it makes sense to have separate modules for the lower overhang and upper overhang.
Interesting thought. An observation struck me, that the maximum size of the ship will be limited by the distance to the crane side rail. So I overlayed the blurry image on top of the more clearer image.

Green line is the crane rail, blue line is the edge of the overhang module. Given that the flight deck will overhang the overhang module, the flight deck should fill up the remaining space.

We should be able get an estimate on the maximum possible dimension of the ship.
Chinese-Navy-Type-003-Aircraft-Carrier.jpg
 

Volpler11

Junior Member
Registered Member
Latest one, but I really have no clue of what you are guessing?

View attachment 71127
BTW another couple observations:
1. The ship that was being built below CV003 is completed and gone now.
2. If the overhang modules are on then the middle part of the ship is completed up to the flight deck level. It does look like it from the above photo.
3. Even the rear of the ship looks complete.
4. The previous high res photo shows remaining hull sections stored to the right of the ship, so the speed of progress is not unexpected. Just need a new high res photo to confirm.
 

Mulong

Just Hatched
Registered Member
Interesting thought. An observation struck me, that the maximum size of the ship will be limited by the distance to the crane side rail. So I overlayed the blurry image on top of the more clearer image.

Green line is the crane rail, blue line is the edge of the overhang module. Given that the flight deck will overhang the overhang module, the flight deck should fill up the remaining space.

We should be able get an estimate on the maximum possible dimension of the ship.
View attachment 71131
I think it's about 130,000 tons and 350 meters long.It's the largest aircraft carrier around the world.
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Is this the front end of the flight deck?
View attachment 71151
Yep, that could very well be the edge of the deck. I'm getting the edge to be around the same spot when I use 129 m as distance from the edge of the deflector to the edge of the deck.

When I measure the distance from the bow edge to some imaginary line right after the stern edge (Estimate of just a few meters of overhang of the currently visible stern edge) I get the following figure for the overall length: 316 m.

Now, the important thing there is that the same catapult lengths were used on 003 estimate as we can see both on Ford and Nimitz class.

While it's possible 003 will feature shorter catapults, perhaps like those on CVN65 Enterprise, which were 109 m from deck edge to deflector - even though they operated fairly heavy planes like F-14, I am somehow doubting Chinese ones will be that short. While they don't have to be quite as long as ones on Ford/Nimitz, J-15 and likely KJ600 do need quite a bit of catapult run. And future proofing the design for heavy aircraft is always prudent, as the carrier might have to operate for the next 40 years.

If the bow-to-deflector distances are 120 m from the deck edge to the deflector, and if we're indeed looking at the deck cut out locations for deflectors, then that might suggest overall carrier length of just 306 m.

Of course, all that is give or take a few meters. As the stern overhang isn't even know. It might be very miniscule.
 

Intrepid

Major
While it's possible 003 will feature shorter catapults, perhaps like those on CVN65 Enterprise, which were 109 m from deck edge to deflector - even though they operated fairly heavy planes like F-14 ...
The Enterprise's catapults are said to have been unable to launch planes from the motionless ship.
 
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