On June 17, 2022 at Jiangnan Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd. (as part of the Chinese State Shipbuilding Corporation China State Shipbuilding Corporation - CSSC) on Changxing Island in Shanghai, a ceremony was held for the launching (actually withdrawal from the dry construction dock) of the third Chinese aircraft carrier under construction, named Fujian (Fujian, tail number "18") in honor of the eastern province of the PRC of the same name. The aircraft carrier Fujian, designated as Project 003, will become the largest warship of the PLA Navy.
Launching ceremony (actually decommissioning from the dry construction dock) at Jiangnan Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd. (as part of the Chinese State Shipbuilding Corporation China State Shipbuilding Corporation - CSSC), the third Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian (Fujian, tail number "18") under construction for the PLA Navy. Shanghai (Changxing), 06/17/2022 (c) Xinhua
The ceremony of launching the ship was attended by a member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council, Colonel-General Xu Qiliang.
The construction of the aircraft carrier Fujian was started at Jiangnan Shipbuilding, it is believed in February 2016. The commissioning of the ship by the PLA Navy is tentatively expected in 2024.
The new Chinese aircraft carrier is a large ship comparable to the aircraft carriers of the US Navy, and with a non-nuclear power plant should become the world's largest non-nuclear aircraft carrier and the largest non-nuclear warship in history. The total displacement of the ship is estimated at 80-85 thousand tons, the length along the waterline is 300 m, the length between the perpendiculars is 320 m, the width along the waterline is 39.5 m, the width between the perpendiculars is 78 m.
The ship's four-shaft main power plant is non-atomic, but details are unknown. Apparently, it is based on the Soviet-style steam turbine GEU of the Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning (former "Varyag" of project 11436) and "Shandong", but apparently uses more powerful main turbo-toothed units. According to some statements, the GEU of the aircraft carrier Fujian is turboelectric, driven by propeller shafts from electric motors.
The architecture of the ship is a classic aircraft carrier with one island superstructure and an angular flight deck, and the layout is a slightly enlarged version of aircraft carriers "Liaoning" and "Shandong". At the same time, the Fujian aircraft carrier for the first time in the Chinese fleet should use the catapult method of taking off aircraft, for which it is equipped with three electromagnetic catapults of Chinese design, landing with the help of aerial finishers. There are only two airplane lifts.
Recall that the first Chinese aircraft carrier was a former Soviet heavy aircraft carrier "Varyag" project 11436, built at the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolaev, where it was laid down in December 1985 (first as "Riga") and launched on November 25, 1988. Due to the collapse of the USSR, its construction was suspended in early January 1992 with 67.77% completed readiness. In May 1998, the unfinished Varyag was purchased from Ukraine for $ 26 million by the PRC through the mediation of a fake Hong Kong company and towed to China in 2000, and in March 2002 it was put into dry dock in Dalian by the Chinese shipyard Dalian Shipyard of the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (Group) (DSIC), which is part of the composition of the then Chinese state shipbuilding Corporation China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC). In addition to the acquisition of the unfinished Varyag and its construction documentation at the Nikolaev Black Sea Shipyard, the Chinese side in the 1990s purchased from the designer of this ship JSC Nevsky PCB (St. Petersburg) for only 840 thousand dollars a complete set of documentation for the technical project 11436.
All this made it possible for the Chinese side to carry out the completion of this ship at the Dalian Shipyard from 2004 to 2012, which eventually became the first Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning(Liaoning, tail number "16") of Project 001 and was commissioned into the PLA Navy on September 25, 2012.
The second Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong (Shandong, tail number "17") was already completely built according to the Chinese project 002 in Dalian at the same shipbuilding enterprise Dalian Shipyard of the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (Group) (DSIC) and structurally differed quite a bit from the Liaoning aircraft carrier of Project 001, since in fact, apparently, it was designed and built on the basis of the kits of the technical project 11436 and its construction documentation available from the Chinese side. The Shandong was actually started in Dalian on November 19, 2013, and the ship was taken out of the dry dock (launched) on April 26, 2017. The Shandong entered factory sea trials from Dalian on May 13, 2018 and was officially commissioned into the PLA Navy on December 17, 2019.
Both of the first Chinese aircraft carriers "Liaoning" and "Shandong" use the Soviet scheme of springboard takeoff of aircraft and landing on an aerial finisher. Subsequently, the PLA Navy moved to the construction of more full-fledged aircraft carriers with a catapult launch. The first of which was the Project 003 Fujian launched in Shanghai.
Descent photo via colleague imp_navigator :
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