China 'on' for aircraft carrier

When you watch how aircraft (Picture Above the retired F-14 Tomcat coming in for a landing)land and take off from an aircraft carrier it's pretty amazing choreography. It's took a decades of experince to fully utilised it. It's more avident in US Navy, other than the others. At least eight other countries have one or two aircraft carriers, including India and Thailand.

China remains the only major global power without aircraft carriers in its fleet. For years, military leaders have weighed the pride that such vessels would bring the nation with the costs and complexity of operating the giant ships, continually postponing a decision.

But now public sentiment is running strongly in favor of launching a program to build aircraft carriers, and some military experts say construction may be inevitable China already has three decommissioned aircraft carriers, all bought from Russia . Military engineers dissected two to see how they worked, then moored them as tourist attractions. The third, the Varyag, is at a secret military base in Dalian , on the Yellow Sea.

Meanwhile, mystery surrounds the Varyag. The huge ship was only 70 percent built— still without engines or rudders— when China bought it for $20 million , far more than its scrap value. The vessel was towed from the Ukraine around the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in Dalian early in 2002. Some foreign experts say China is restoring the flight deck.

"I . . . believe the Varyag will serve as a transitional platform to train pilots and to perfect doctrine— both how to use a carrier and how to sink one," said Fisher, who's the vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Alexandria, Va .

A Hong Kong -based publication, Kanwa Asian Defence, reported in September that some Chinese-built J-10 fighters now carry tail hooks needed for carrier landings. Kanwa said China would wait until the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games had passed to announce its plans to build aircraft carriers "due to concerns over its international image

While Soviet studies of carrier aviaton were commenced as long ago as 1952. At the time of Korean war still raging. But by then, the west had four decades of experinece. Even today, a further five decades on, they have still not caught up. But the gap has closed enormously.
Soviet have a flight trials commenced on Tbilisi in 1989 with an Su-27 Flanker, MiG-29 Fulcrum and Su-25 Frogfoot. All aircraft was extensively modified for the task.

Until now there is not much news off what really going on Soviet Navy. We haven't seen anything yet comparable to US Navy aircraft carrier or probably we won't.