Well when you consider the US has had aircraft carriers since the 20’s and there is no country on the planet more adept and experienced at carrier ops than we are and we STILL have aviation mishaps at sea, I can hardly wait to see the Chicom’s learning curve on their first cruise. Bet they lose at least 1/3 of their airwing.
My thoughts, exactly! Also, as I understand it, the track record of every STOL aircraft such as the Harrier and the like, pales in comparison with more traditionally launched aircraft.
I’d buy that.
The Japanese experience in training up a "third wave" of naval aviators after their terrific losses of "second wave" pilots and aircrew during the mid-1943 Philippine Sea campaign (the "Marianas Turkey Shoot") was appalling. They lost many pilots even before the Turkey Shoot to carrier-landing accidents, while trying to land on moored carriers. They lost hundreds more aircraft and pilots in accelerated training in the weeks and months before the Formosa raid and Battle of Leyte.
Their losses in the second and third years of the war soared into the thousands -- and they had started the war with about 1000 first-rate pilots, the great majority of whom they lost in 1942.