As reported by the Xinhua News Agency, on May 1, 2024, the third Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian (Fujian, tail number "18") first went to sea from Shanghai for factory sea trials. The aircraft carrier Fujian, designated as Project 003, was built at the shipbuilding enterprise of Jiangnan Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd. (as part of the Chinese State Shipbuilding Corporation China State Shipbuilding Corporation - CSSC) on Changxing Island in Shanghai and will become the largest warship of the PLA Navy.
The first entry into factory sea trials of the third Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian (Fujian, tail number "18"), built for the PLA Navy at the Jiangnan Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd. (as part of the Chinese State Shipbuilding Corporation China State Shipbuilding Corporation - CSSC). Shanghai, 05/01/2024 (c) a frame from the PLA Navy video
The construction of the aircraft carrier Fujian was started at Jiangnan Shipbuilding, it is believed in February 2016. The ceremony of launching the ship (actually decommissioning from the dry construction dock) took place on June 17, 2022. The aircraft carrier was named after the eastern province of China.
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, it 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 maximum length is 316 m, the width along the waterline is 39.5 m, the maximum width is 76 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 power plant of the Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning (former Varyag project 11436) and Shandong, but apparently uses more powerful main turbo-toothed units. According to some claims, the GEU of the Fujian aircraft carrier 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 the aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong. At the same time, the aircraft carrier Fujian, for the first time in the Chinese navy, should use an ejection method for 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 the former Soviet heavy aircraft carrier Varyag of project 11436, which was 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. 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 at the Chinese shipyard Dalian Shipyard of the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (Group) (DSIC), which is part of the composition of the then Chinese state-owned 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 PKB (St. Petersburg) for only 840 thousand dollars a complete set of documentation for technical project 11436.
All this made it possible for the Chinese side to carry out the completion of this ship from 2004 to 2012 at Dalian Shipyard, which eventually became the first Chinese aircraft carrier 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 aircraft carrier Liaoning of project 001, since In fact, it was apparently designed and built on the basis of the sets of 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 removed from the dry dock (launched) on [...] April 26, 2017. The Shandong entered factory sea trials from Dalian on May 13, 2018 and was officially html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">was commissioned into the PLA Navy on December 17, 2019.
Both the first Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong use the Soviet scheme of springboard take-off of aircraft and landing on an aerial finisher. Subsequently, the PLA Navy moved to the construction of more full-fledged aircraft carriers with an ejection launch. The first of which was the Fujian Project 003 built in Shanghai.
The first entry into factory sea trials of the third Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian (Fujian, tail number "18"), built for the PLA Navy at the Jiangnan Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd. (as part of the Chinese State Shipbuilding Corporation China State Shipbuilding Corporation - CSSC). Shanghai, 05/01/2024 (c) a frame from the PLA Navy video
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