In the middle of this year, an investigation report entitled "Modernization of the Chinese Navy" published by the US Congress has already mentioned that the current technical level of China's new domestic aircraft carriers and the most advanced "Ford" aircraft carriers in the United States are opponents of the same level.
Compared with the two domestic aircraft carriers of Liaoning and Shandong equipped by China, the displacement length and width of the new domestic aircraft carriers are undoubtedly much larger than theirs. The aircraft take-off and landing mode of the new domestic aircraft carrier has also undergone no small change, and the bold use of electromagnetic catapults and flat straight decks has greatly improved the perception of the aircraft carrier and the combat radius, which is a threat that cannot be ignored by the United States.
US experts believe that the biggest progress of China's new domestic aircraft carrier is the use of a new straight deck and electromagnetic catapult, coupled with a new type of bridge and long-range active phased array early warning radar, in addition to the number of carrier-based aircraft and power system, its comprehensive combat capability surpasses the United States Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and can even be comparable to the Ford-class aircraft carrier.
China's old Liaoning Shandong aircraft carrier uses Soviet-style skid deck take-off and landing technology, mainly because the Soviet Union did not use ejection technology when building the Kuznetsov (that is, Liaoning) aircraft carrier (compared with the U.S. catapult technology, the Soviet union's ejection technology is not mature), so the Chinese side also used the skid deck take-off and landing technology when it was modified. After a period of exploration, the Chinese side continued to use the ski jump deck take-off and landing technology on the Shandong, and at the same time, the Chinese side is also developing electromagnetic catapult technology, and China's electromagnetic catapult technology has gradually improved after the official completion of the Shandong ship.
The traditional ski-jump deck take-off and landing technology is to install a curved deck of tens of meters in front of the aircraft carrier deck, which is upward, and the general angle is between 10-14 °. When the carrier aircraft takes off, it relies on the thrust of the engine to push the aircraft, and taxis to the curved deck by the deck to bring extra lift to the carrier aircraft, that is to say, the fuselage is pulled up in advance before flying out of the deck, so that it can take off and climb immediately.
Ski jump deck take-off has many advantages, such as saving money, saving time, etc., the general small country aircraft carrier basically uses this way to carry out aircraft carrier take-off and landing.
However, this take-off method also has many disadvantages, that is, the aircraft can only take off with light loads, that is to say, an aircraft cannot take off with full fuel and ammunition, because it is too heavy plus the length of the aircraft carrier deck is too short compared with the ground airport runway, so the aircraft engine does not accumulate enough thrust on the aircraft carrier deck.
The second is the problem of attendance, the ski jump deck is too slow compared to the catapult takeoff, the catapult takes off only needs to quickly carry the aircraft to the catapult track, you can quickly pull the fighter take-off. The Nimitz aircraft carrier can quickly catapult 40 F/A-18E/F fighters in 30 minutes, while the Liaoning with the ski-jump deck can catapult all 24 J-15 fighters on its own between 60 and 90 minutes, taking off from visible catapults.
The new aircraft carrier produced by the domestic aircraft carrier adopts electromagnetic catapult technology, although China's electromagnetic catapult is very late compared to the development of the United States. However, under the attack of Rear Admiral Ma Weiming's team, our navy has now mastered the new electromagnetic catapult technology, and the development is rapid and smooth, there is no reliability and other aspects of the problem, even surpassing the United States, to know that although the United States electromagnetic catapult was done early, but the technical problems are continuous.
The electromagnetic catapult system is an electric-driven catapult system with strong power, which can catapult out heavy carrier-based aircraft full of oil and bullets at high speed, so the combat radius and strike capability of the new domestic aircraft carrier will increase exponentially. Not only that, electromagnetic catapults will exponentially increase the attendance rate of new aircraft carrier-based fighters, and it is estimated that the time required to dispatch all 60 fighters is only about 30-40 minutes, which is undoubtedly more efficient than the steam catapult system used by the United States Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
Moreover, as the key detection equipment for aircraft carrier situation perception, the carrier-based airborne early warning aircraft KJ600 will also board a new domestic aircraft carrier aircraft carrier, and the KJ600 can detect targets 550 kilometers away, which can greatly enhance the aircraft carrier's ability to detect sea and air.
Therefore, this is why many military experts pay special attention to the use of electromagnetic catapults for new domestic aircraft carriers.
As for the fighter equipped with the new domestic aircraft carrier, it may be the ejection model of the J-15B, which is used as a transitional fighter, first let the pilot familiarize himself with the characteristics of ejection and takeoff, and then use the stealth fighter.
It is rumored that the carrier-based version of the FC-31 stealth fighter is being tested, and the future will replace the J-15B as the absolute main fighter of the new domestic aircraft carrier, as opposed to the F-35C stealth carrier-based fighter that the United States has deployed in actual combat, and experts analyze that the performance of the F-35C and FC-31 stealth fighters is not much different, so the two aircraft are evenly matched.
Finally, a comprehensive analysis shows that China's new domestic aircraft carrier is currently the strongest conventionally powered aircraft carrier, and its combat capability is completely comparable to that of the Ford-class aircraft carrier in the United States, of course, the new domestic aircraft carrier has no nuclear power and will also limit its maritime combat range, but the overall is still flawed, so the future Chinese aircraft carrier will be the most powerful opponent of the US aircraft carrier.