The Ship Model Forum

Section of aircraft carrier built last year to attract aircraft carrier contract

The 2nd session of the 12th Liaoning Provincial People’s Congress is now being held in Shenyang. Wang Min, Liaoning Party secretary and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Congress disclosed in the morning group discussion today that construction of China’s second homegrown aircraft carrier has started at Dalian Shipyard and is expected to be completed in 6 years. In the future, China will at least have 4 aircraft carriers. In addition, the shipyard is responsible for building two new-version 052D Aegis missile destroyers.

That has been the first official disclosure ever of the construction of a China-made aircraft carrier.

However, Wang has given no information about the carrier: whether it is conventional or nuclear powered and whether there will be catapult to help taking off.

Chinese military expert Li Jie believes that the new aircraft carrier will be bigger than the Liaoning with a displacement of 70,000 to 90,000 tons. It will be a conventional one without catapult so that it will be easier to build.

He believes that China’s third aircraft carrier will be bigger to carry more aircrafts and allow the installation of a catapult.

Another expert Du Wenlong also believes that China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier will be a conventional one.

Previously CSIC (China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation) said in December 2013 that it had received two super shipbuilding contracts.

Source: news.ifeng.com “Liaoning Provincial Party Secretary confirms China’s homegrown aircraft carrier is being built in Liaoning to be completed in 6 years”

Chinese Carrier's Purported Air Wing Deemed Plausible but Limited

TAIPEI — New details have emerged on the aircraft lineup for the new carrier Liaoning, which analysts say is a “plausible” mix of foreign-designed fighter jets and various helicopters, yet limited due to its lack of other necessary aircraft.

According to the Aug. 28 edition of the Chinese-language Shanghai Morning Post, the carrier will house 36 aircraft, including:

■ 24 Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark fighters.

■ 6 Changhe Z-18F anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopters.

■ 4 Changhe Z-18J airborne early warning helicopters.

■ 2 Harbin Z-9C rescue helicopters.

The article was based on quotes from Cao Dongwei, senior colonel and researcher at the People’s Liberation Army Naval Research Institute. The Liaoning is a refurbished Soviet-era Varyag aircraft carrier procured in 1998 by China and commissioned in 2012.

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Airbus Defence and Space imagery shows Liaoning pierside at Dalian following refit in the adjacent dry dock.

The absence of most flight deck markings, particularly those delineating take-off and landing areas, is indicative of surface refinishing undertaken during the refit.(PLEIADES © CNES 2014, Distribution Airbus DS/Spot Image/IHS)


IHS Jane's 360

People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) deputy political commissar Rear Admiral Ding Haichun has confirmed that construction of China's first indigenous aircraft carrier is underway, according to the Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspaper, which interviewed several senior officers, including Rear Adm Ding, on the margins of the National People's Congress being held in Beijing.

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In a separate report, the PLA Daily reported the successful development of an electromagnetic catapult, citing the assertion by the project leader, Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, that it is the equal of American designs.

China has been very reticent to outline its carrier plans and ambitions. In January, information relating to a contract to supply components for the new carrier was removed from a company's website after it circulated online. On 6 March, Chinese media reported that two workers with access to bases in Dalian had been jailed for six and eight years for passing photographs of China's first carrier, Liaoning , to "foreign spies".

China’s First Domestic Aircraft Carrier Almost Certainly Under Construction

By: Sam LaGrone
September 30, 2015 7:09 PM • Updated: October 1, 2015 11:35 AM

China has quietly begun construction on its first domestic aircraft carrier in the same northern Chinese shipyard that refurbished the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s current Soviet-era carrier, USNI News has learned.

Several sources confirmed to USNI News that an unknown shipbuilding project — first noticed publically by Jane’s in late February — is almost without a doubt the bones of the PLAN’s first domestically-built carrier.

Sources pointed USNI News to an April photograph that emerged on the Chinese language Internet of a ship under construction at the Dalian yard believed to be the super structure of the PLAN’s second carrier.

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6 additional naval aviators certified for carrier operations

As the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN's) second aircraft carrier, commonly referred to as the Type 001A, nears completion, Chinese state-owned media have reported that the country's third aircraft carrier is also under construction.

Li Jie, a naval military expert, was quoted by the Global Times newspaper on 21 February as saying that the carrier, commonly known as the Type 002, will be "entirely different" from China's previous carriers and that it will look like a "US aircraft carrier rather than a Russian one".