Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
The Chinese navy’s gigantic new aircraft carrier, CNS Fujian, is expected to head to sea for the first time this year, a senior official of the ship said in an interview with state media.
In a report of the interview published by the state-run China Daily on Tuesday, Senior Colonel Qian Shumin did not disclose the exact date the aircraft carrier will conduct its first maritime excursion, only stating: 100th anniversary goal of the People’s Liberation Army. ”
Its 100th anniversary, coming in 2027, was mentioned by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October as a deadline for the PLA to achieve its modernization goals.
The Fujian is the largest warship ever built by China, and bringing it into service is a key element in the PLA Navy’s goals.
The ship was launched in style on June 17 and is in the final stages of construction at a shipyard in Shanghai.
Karl Schuester, a Hawaii-based analyst and former U.S. Navy captain, said he expects the first tests in Fujian to take place in the spring.
“Based on the technology and systems installed in Fujian, the first sea trials will be conducted around March 2023 and will consist of basic engineering and ship handling tests,” said the Joint Intelligence Agency of the U.S. Pacific Command. said Schuster, former Chief of Operations for . center.
He said the first trial would probably last three to seven days.
These would be the first steps in a series of trials spanning about 18 months that could see Fujian become operational by October 2024, Schuster said.
“Each trial is followed by an investigation of what went right and what went wrong, and a solution to each human- or equipment-related problem is identified and applied,” he said.
China Daily reports that Fujian, which displaces about 80,000 tons of water, is 50% larger than the two aircraft carriers China currently has in service, and, like the 100,000-ton U.S. Nimitz-class ships, the People’s Liberation Army Navy. is included in the group of super aircraft carriers. .
It also shows that China can match US carrier technology.
China’s two other aircraft carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, are based on obsolete Soviet technology. These two carriers use a ski-jump launch system, in which the planes take off from only a few ramps, while the U.S. carrier uses a more advanced catapult system to launch its aircraft.
Fujian also uses an electromagnetic catapult system. This is the only one on board her USS Gerald Ford, the newest US-operable aircraft carrier.
Schuster said integrating the Fujian Air Wing into operations with its new technology would be the final significant part of the trial, which he said would come sometime in the summer of 2024. I expected.
