[Husker24]

It can only carry 30 aircraft?, seems a little on the low side to me. Doesn't it have an elevator with more planes below deck?

[He Rides A White Horse]

It can only carry 30 aircraft?, seems a little on the low side to me. Doesn't it have an elevator with more planes below deck?

Sounds more like pocket carrier than anything else.

[Trueblackman]

She has two L’s and Lady Lex(Essex Class Training Carrier) was able to carry more planes than this into the 1990’s.

[GeronL]

The other 2 are/will be full sized.

[USNBandit]

There are two issues with small carriers that go hand in hand. Deck size limits the number of aircraft you can have on deck during recoveries. That small number also limits your ability to simultaneously strike targets and defend your battle group.

The current big boats of the U.S. Navy have a normal compliment of approx. 90 aircraft with a majority of those on deck. That allows a U.S. boat to launch 25-30 aircraft on a regular launch and to run cyclic operations for 12 hours on a normal "we aren't working that hard" pace.

This little Chinese boat is going to have at most 20 aircraft on deck and most likely will have to pretty much shoot the whole deck and wait for it to recover, refuel and reload, before launching again. They will also pretty much be limited to a small strike with little or no CAP, or just air defense. They basically need 10 parked with an empty ramp to park recovering aircraft in while leaving the landing area clear. I don't think they will have the deck space to do what we do, recovering an aircraft every 35-45 seconds in the day time, and every 60 seconds at night.

[Oztrich Boy]

It can only carry 30 aircraft?, seems a little on the low side to me. Doesn't it have an elevator with more planes below deck?

Other way round. Most nations operate an air wing size that can be completely struck down into the hanger. 30 is about right for a 67,000 ton ship. (A Nimitz hanger normally holds only 45)