The Rising Sea Dragon in Asia: Varyag
Posted on 02/13/2010 4:29:02 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Downplaying the threat from the China PLA Navy with periodic reports of its move to acquire an aircraft carrier, the former Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral (retd.) Arun Prakash said on Thursday it was not going to happen soon.
“The PLA Navy is some years away from attaining [aircraft] carrier capability,” he said at the conclusion of a two-day seminar at the annual maritime power conference 2010, organised by the National Maritime Foundation.
Referring to China focussing on expansion of its Navy for the last two decades, possibly to address areas of maritime concern including Taiwan and its extended trade and energy sea lanes running across the Indian Ocean, he said the lack of an integral aviation capability is considered by the Chinese leadership to be a major handicap.
In its quest for an aircraft carrier during the last three decades China purchased hulls of three de-commissioned ships which led to periodic reports that a new or refurbished carrier unveiling was imminent.
“However, acquiring or even building a carrier is not China’s real problem; their dilemma is the type of aircraft that is going to be operated from the ship,” he said. In the current scenario China was unlikely to have access to a steam catapult to launch an aircraft from the deck and its option is confined to two Russian aircraft that use short take-off and arrested recovery, he added.
So, either Russia will have to give sufficient numbers of either MiG29 K [which India has procured for its aircraft carrier] or Su-33 fighter to equip its carriers or China design carrier aircraft in a hurry
(Excerpt) Read more at beta.thehindu.com ...
Based on normal media and government - the fact is I’d say, two months.
But he has a point. The easiest part about having a carrier-equipped navy, is acquiring one. The hardest, is evolving the logistics and operations, and that takes decades to develop and fine-tune.
From the article:
“The Indian Navy has travelled this route and knows that aircraft acquisition, training of air and ship crew and gathering operational expertise in carrier operations are factors that take a lot of time and effort. “I would therefore say that the PLA Navy is some years away from attaining carrier capability.””
The Langley was commissioned around 1920 so I guess they are only 80 years behind us...
Especially since we developed a lot of our expertise with prop planes before jumping up to jets. Its going to take them a long time to steal the information they need to operate a naval carrier and fly jets from it.
Like I said earlier, getting the carrier is the easiest part.
Evolving logistics and operations, the hardest.
No one is going to teach them, unless they have moles in foreign navies.
Sure...just like Japan was eons away from developing modern fighter planes in 1937...
A few good meals and alluring females provided to the French naval attache's office ought to do the trick.
If a backward country like my native Argentina can have aircraft carriers and learn to land planes on them then China can certainly do it a lot faster. Heck, Brazil has aircraft carriers in it’s navy. The only problem is support bases and rage so until China gets some of those it won’t be able to stray too far off it’s shores.
To date only the US and Japan have managed to field true offensive aircraft carriers, supercarriers capable of projecting national power. Every other carrier out there has been at best a support vessel for the army. That’s what the Chinese are building too.
The way its built that looks almost like a training platform
After the bomb dropped and the surrender signed, we found lots of jets and missiles hidden in a mountain awaiting use for the expected US invasion. Prognosis was: we would have lost most ships and all planes had we invaded.
Several years ago the Russians trained with a US carrier group. The US ship emptied its’ complete inventory of aircraft from the deck in less than an hour. The Russians took almost 8 hours to launch the same number of planes.
Landing was another issue. Most of the Russians chose to land onshore and waived off their attempts at landing on ship.
Considering the lack of skills exhibited by PLA pilots, carrier landing ops would be quite the reality show to watch.
By the time major threats are imminent, it is usually too late to do anything about it.
Transformation of the Varyag into an operational PLAN Aircraft Carrier
Once they do this, IMHO, they will build their own indegenous carriers to a modified Varyag design, probably at least two. At least one of those (if not both) being commissioned by 2020.
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