PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

Jeff Head said:

Amen to this.

And it is spoken by one who has many, many years of experience doing this very thing.

Same with Kwaig...a man who knows exactly what carrier deck handling and air boss operations are all about...because he has been there doing it!

I will take this advise and this experience over all of the book learning and all of the opinions of those who have never been to sea and operated in these environs every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Here in the US, I wish we had pols and land-lubber appointees who had the sense to do the same.

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I will take the action of Chinese Navy over any self-appointed expert. Certainly, people can disagree with what the Chinese Navy is doing, but if the Chinese Navy doesn't put Liaoning out to sea, then there must be a good reason.

Engineer said:

I will take the action of Chinese Navy over any self-appointed expert. Certainly, people can disagree with what the Chinese Navy is doing, but if the Chinese Navy doesn't put Liaoning out to sea, then there must be a good reason.

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Yeah, but is that reason because they don't want to go out to sea and think they can train as well on land, or because they can't take the ship out to sea (either due to time needed to absorb lessons learnt on previous excursions, and/or possible problems with the ship).

I think it is the latter reason.

Going out to sea is the best way to gain experience. The fact that they aren't is probably more reflective of the still early stage of learning in naval aviation they are at. They might be going back to land to retrain, file reports and documents, and make tweaks to organisation, and technical issues may also have arisen. That is definitely an acceptable reason for the occasions when liaoning isn't at sea.

Engineer said:

I will take the action of Chinese Navy over any self-appointed expert. Certainly, people can disagree with what the Chinese Navy is doing, but if the Chinese Navy doesn't put Liaoning out to sea, then there must be a good reason.

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The people of whom I spoke are not "self appointed" experts. They are men who have spent many, many more years on carriers operating them, being trained to do so, and then training others to do the same.

Their "opinon," in the form of their comments and advise is as valuable as gold to any program that is just getting started as the Chinese are. Anyone wanting to understand carrier operations and what it takes to progress in them, or to improve them, would be foolish and completely self-absorbed and immature to the point of being negligent to either take lightly what such people share in this regard, or to somehow think they "know better."

This does not mean that the PLAN does not have its reasons to be waiting...and those reasons most probably have nothing to do with training schedules or even an unwillingness to do what people like popeye and kwaig advise. It is probably far more related to maintenance issues, equipment issues, availability, and production schedules.

But none of that invalidates or negates the sage wisdom those two men shared on this thread. I am hopeful, that as soon as the PLAN can, that they will do things that show that such advise is precisely what they are trying to accomplish.

Time will tell.

delft said:

That would mean that a J-15 batch was delayed to produce a J-16 batch earlier?

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I would be highly skeptical that the J-16 has stepped ahead of the J-15, it would make NO sense, whatsoever???

Maybe the PLAN is just waiting for enemy submarines to clear away so that the carrier group can have more room to maneuver and do their exercises without being follow or spy upon?

Jeff Head said:

The people of whom I spoke are not "self appointed" experts. They are men who have spent many, many more years on carriers operating them, being trained to do so, and then training others to do the same.

Their "opinon," in the form of their comments and advise is as valuable as gold to any program that is just getting started as the Chinese are. Anyone wanting to understand carrier operations and what it takes to progress in them, or to improve them, would be foolish and completely self-absorbed and immature to the point of being negligent to either take lightly what such people share in this regard, or to somehow think they "know better."

This does not mean that the PLAN does not have its reasons to be waiting...and those reasons most probably have nothing to do with training schedules or even an unwillingness to do what people like popeye and kwaig advise. It is probably far more related to maintenance issues, equipment issues, availability, and production schedules.

But none of that invalidates or negates the sage wisdom those two men shared on this thread. I am hopeful, that as soon as the PLAN can, that they will do things that show that such advise is precisely what they are trying to accomplish.

Time will tell.

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That is correct. In this particular case I am neutral and speak purely from a technical/operational point of view and also as someone who knows about naval matters. I would be saying the same thing if Liaoning is a us navy ship, Iranian navy or even a north Korean vessel for that matter.

I leave politics, faux patriotism and chest thumping to the politicians or to political threads.

Jeff Head said:

The people of whom I spoke are not "self appointed" experts. They are men who have spent many, many more years on carriers operating them, being trained to do so, and then training others to do the same.

Their "opinon," in the form of their comments and advise is as valuable as gold to any program that is just getting started as the Chinese are. Anyone wanting to understand carrier operations and what it takes to progress in them, or to improve them, would be foolish and completely self-absorbed and immature to the point of being negligent to either take lightly what such people share in this regard, or to somehow think they "know better."

This does not mean that the PLAN does not have its reasons to be waiting...and those reasons most probably have nothing to do with training schedules or even an unwillingness to do what people like popeye and kwaig advise. It is probably far more related to maintenance issues, equipment issues, availability, and production schedules.

But none of that invalidates or negates the sage wisdom those two men shared on this thread. I am hopeful, that as soon as the PLAN can, that they will do things that show that such advise is precisely what they are trying to accomplish.

Time will tell.

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None of what you say negate the simple fact that training is continuing despite the carrier not being out at sea. What's more is the fact that PLAN has invested huge amount of money for land based simulators, not only for the pilots but for the commanding officers and crew as well. Actions are louder than words. With actions, PLAN has clearly disagreed with self-appointed experts on the value of land based training, and PLAN is not the only one.

Bltizo said:

Yeah, but is that reason because they don't want to go out to sea and think they can train as well on land, or because they can't take the ship out to sea (either due to time needed to absorb lessons learnt on previous excursions, and/or possible problems with the ship).

I think it is the latter reason.

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This time, evidences point to the latter reasons. In other times, the ship was available yet PLAN chose not to go out to sea. So, I would say both.

Bltizo said:

Going out to sea is the best way to gain experience. The fact that they aren't is probably more reflective of the still early stage of learning in naval aviation they are at. They might be going back to land to retrain, file reports and documents, and make tweaks to organisation, and technical issues may also have arisen. That is definitely an acceptable reason for the occasions when liaoning isn't at sea.

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Some here keep on saying training on the job is the best way to gain experience, but that completely ignores the purposes of land base facilities. On land people can make mistakes without being killed, but not so when they are out at sea. Since people can make mistakes without getting killed, they can also be trained on more extreme situations than what is allowed on an actual vessel: fire, flooding, and landing with just one engine for pilots. Take fire as an example. On ship, the crew trains to fight imaginary fire. On land, the crew trains to fight actual fire. So, on the job experience is not the best, just better in some situations.

Engineer said:

None of what you say negate the simple fact that training is continuing despite the carrier not being out at sea. What's more is the fact that PLAN has invested huge amount of money for land based simulators, not only for the pilots but for the commanding officers and crew as well. Actions are louder than words. With actions, PLAN has clearly disagreed with self-appointed experts on the value of land based training, and PLAN is not the only one.

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So what you're saying is that you believe the PLAN are keeping liaoning at dock because they think land based training is at this stage a viable substitute for sea based experience, or something of that sort?

Because I think that is a very unlikely to be true. Going out to sea is the best form of training there is, I do not think it is worth disputing that. The PLAN recognizes this thankfully, otherwise they would not be sending ships out constantly to Aden and rotating personnel there, or doing more open ocean exercises.

The more likely scenario is that the PLAN would prefer to send liaoning out to sea more often, but at this stage of their development in naval aviation they are unable to, either because they are paying it safe or maybe constantly absorbing the lessons of every excursion, or maybe due to equipment issues, or any other number of possible contingencies that may have popped up during their exercises and training runs which they hadn't considered before. This is their first carrier after all, and it has only been a year and a half since it was commissioned.


Also, it is probably worth mentioning that we don't know how comprehensive the land based simulators are. Sure we have a ski jump on a airfield with the outline of liaoning's deck, and there is the wuhan mock up, but we cannot anywhere near confidently say the PLAN has a land based training facility which is comprehensive enough to replace what sea based experience can provide, partly because we don't know how competent they are at operating the carrier at this point in the first place.

Engineer said:

This time, evidences point to the latter reasons. In other times, the ship was available yet PLAN chose not to go out to sea. So, I would say both.

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Well, on the occasions when the ship was available the crew may not have been due to a necessity to retrain them or perhaps for them to deliver reports, etc. That would technically be considered part of the training cycle, I suppose, and it is a necessary stage they will have to do.
Also, I don't think we can quite say when liaoning was "available," given we can't see into the ship'sinternal status.

Some here keep on saying training on the job is the best way to gain experience, but that completely ignores the purposes of land base facilities. On land people can make mistakes without being killed, but not so when they are out at sea. Since people can make mistakes without getting killed, they can also be trained on more extreme situations than what is allowed on an actual vessel: fire, flooding, and landing with just one engine for pilots. So, on the job experience is not the best, just better in some situations.

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I think that means the ship or crew simply are not experienced enough to go out to sea as often as they would like. There are certain accepted norms for sea going durations (accepting risk of real sea based experience not withstanding), and I think we shouldn't shy away from the fact that the PLAN aren't there yet.