CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Bltizo said:

I watched the interview you linked, thanks for that by the way.

At 6:54, he mentions the J-15 had been launched from the EM catapults "many times" which he follows by saying "hundreds to thousand times".

So clearly, for the "成百上千次" he is referring to the number of times that a J-15 has been launched from the EM catapult.


However, this does not preclude the likelihood that the EM catapult has had many more hundreds or even thousands of test launches using sleds, either at the Huangdicun NATF site, or even as a prototype at other sites not at Huangdicun.

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The airframe life of a typical fighter is only around 1000-2000 takeoff and landings. Did they expend the entire airframe life of a prototype in just a year or two?

Also, the take off and flying characteristics of the j-15 is not in doubt. So what is to be gained by testing the catapult on an actual j-15 so many times when an instrumented and weighted sled cost <0.1% of a J-15 would do?

Richard Santos said:

The airframe life of a typical fighter is only around 1000-2000 takeoff and landings. Did they expend the entire airframe life of a prototype in just a year or two?

Also, the take off and flying characteristics of the j-15 is not in doubt. So what is to be gained by testing the catapult on an actual j-15 so many times when an instrumented and weighted sled cost <0.1% of a J-15 would do?

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Well, the language of the Admiral's words are best translated as "hundreds up to/slightly exceeding a thousand".

I imagine the launches of the catapult with the J-15T was not to merely test the catapult itself -- I expect many thousands of test launches to have been done on prototypes with test sleds before the catapult competition track at Huangdicun was even built -- but instead, to test the J-15T's airframe and how it interacts with the catapult over a large number of launches, and to verify the overall catapult+J-15T workflow.


We have to think about what the catapult tracks at Huangdicun are meant to be, and what the purpose of J-15T (the prototype) is meant to be.

I believe the Huangdicun tracks are meant to be a final proving ground for the two competing catapults. I do not think either of them are "prototypes" but that both have been developed many years ago with prototypes verified and developed and iterated and tested.
The construction of two competing catapults at Huangdicun is meant to be the final test to see which one would proceed onwards to be installed on CV-18/00X. For that purpose, each catapult likely would have had to be "demonstrated" in as operationally realistic a manner as they could manage without being on a real aircraft carrier. As part of that, I think having a high launch tempo to get as many real aircraft launches, under a variety of conditions, under each one's belt makes a lot of sense.

The J-15T, OTOH, is also the first catapult compatible carrier based fighter aircraft (and aircraft overall) that the Navy has ever had. It would make sense to test its launch characteristics and how it effects the airframe over many launches to simulate its lifetime stress, as quickly as possible, while under both types of catapults.

Bltizo said:

First of all, 002 is now widely accepted among most of the Chinese defence boards as the designation for the STOBAR carrier built in Dalian launched earlier this year, aka "CV-17".

002 is no longer the designation for the first CATOBAR carrier. Some English speaking media and even some state media who do not know better are continuing to call the STOBAR carrier "001A" and the CATOBAR carrier as "002" but in reality they should probably now be called "002" and "00X" respectively.
The thread title should probably be changed.


There are some indications suggesting fabrication of modules for 00X may have begun this year or something like that, but cards are still being held close to the chest.

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Why not just go ahead and call it 003, because what else is going to be "003" if not the CATOBAR carrier?

Iron Man said:

Why not just go ahead and call it 003, because what else is going to be "003" if not the CATOBAR carrier?

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003 is still tied up with the idea of being a CVN from years past.
"00X" has more pause to know it isn't necessarily the case. But tbh I don't really mind.

jobjed said:

Here you go. You don't even need to know Chinese to see "002" on the billboard.

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So is this considered "official" or what? It looks pretty official.

Iron Man said:

So is this considered "official" or what? It looks pretty official.

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It's official. It was posted by CSIC onto their website and the man in the middle of the three-man table is the chairman of CSIC, Hu Wenming.

The question now is whether the carrier is Type 002 or just Project 002. Since this is a CSIC meeting, they could be using an internal project designation that's not used by the PLAN. An example would be the ZTZ-99 MBTs' being known as WZ-123 by their manufacturer. Regardless, even "Project 002" is more legit than the enthusiast-given "Type 001A".

jobjed said:

Here you go. You don't even need to know Chinese to see "002" on the billboard.

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What is this place, and what is written on the wall?

jobjed said:

It's official. It was posted by CSIC onto their website and the man in the middle of the three-man table is the chairman of CSIC, Hu Wenming.

The question now is whether the carrier is Type 002 or just Project 002. Since this is a CSIC meeting, they could be using an internal project designation that's not used by the PLAN. An example would be the ZTZ-99 MBTs' being known as WZ-123 by their manufacturer. Regardless, even "Project 002" is more legit than the enthusiast-given "Type 001A".

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So then is "001" a Type or a Project? If Project then we still don't know what the official PLAN classification of the Liaoning is.

Orthan said:

What is this place, and what is written on the wall?

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"002 Aircraft Carrier Project Command System and Design System Conference & Provisional Party Committee of the Field Command Conference"

"两总" should be the chief commander (总指挥) and the chief designer (总设计师).

It should be noted that "总指挥" in Chinese does not necessarily have the military connotation "commander" has in English. "Command" here should be be understand as the director of operation.

KIENCHIN said:

Hope the size of the island could be reduced further, it is still huge.

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I have doubts that this island mockup is a complete recreation of a future island. The alignment of the "new" bridge doesnt seem to make much sense, too extended to the deck, to the point that it could create problems to the landing planes. Also, the lower part of the island i much longer than the upper part, which creates doubts.

It seems that they are testing the design of the upper part of the island. If so, a future island could have a different size than the current mockup.

In adition this is an article by janes about the island renovation.