China Launched its First Home-Made Aircraft Carrier for PLAN: Type 001A

: Posted On Wednesday, 26 April 2017 08:53

Naval Forces News - China

China Launched its First Home-Made Aircraft Carrier for PLAN: Type 001A

The launching ceremony of China's second aircraft carrier was held at the Dalian Shipyard of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) on the morning of April 26, 2017. Gen. Fan Changlong, member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) attended the ceremony and delivered a speech.

Five years after commissioning the Liaoning (its first aircraft carrier) China launched this morning its second carrier – the Type 001A. Unlike the Liaoning, Type 001A was fully built in China.

The ceremony was kicked off in magnificent national anthem at 9:00 and a bottle of champagne was broken on the aircraft carrier as a customary way of blessing the ship. After that, the new aircraft carrier was slowly towed out of the dockyard and transferred to the wharf.

The second aircraft carrier is domestically built by China. China started building it in November, 2013. At present, the main hull of this aircraft carrier has been completed and the main system devices including power supply have been installed in place.

Undocking and launching is one of the important nodes of a new aircraft carrier construction, marking that China has made significant phased achievements in designing and building an aircraft carrier independently. Next, the aircraft carrier will debug its system devices and conduct fitting-out as planned, and start mooring tests in an all-round way.

The PLA Navy Commander Shen Jinlong,PLA Navy Political Commissar Miao Hua, and CSIC President Hu Wenming also attended the ceremony.

Type 001A during launch

Differences between Liaoning and Type 001A

It is easy to spot the difference in the island between the Liaoning - transformed by the Chinese from the unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag - and its new sistership: The new carrier features some upgraded radar arrays, its island is said to be about 10% smaller while the vessel itself is said to have a larger displacement of about 10,000 tons.

Our colleagues from East Pendulum report that, according to a former technical officer of the PLAN, the engineers of the CSIC shipbuilding group also reviewed the internal design of the Type 001A to rectify the "anomalies" noted after the intensive use for nearly five years of Liaoning.

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