Last week it was Bears, this week it’s cats. Catapults, that is. Traps too, it appears:
Russia has started flying jets again from its only operational aircraft carrier after a two-year break, state-run television reported yesterday in the latest show of the country’s reviving military capability. “Aircraft are taking off and landing from the deck of the Kuznetsov after a gap of two years. To the pilots and crew [the gap] seemed enormous,” Channel One television said in a report from on board the vessel. Last week, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia was returning to its Soviet-era practice of sending long-range bomber aircraft on regular patrols near to NATO airspace. Observers saw those sorties as a sign of Russia’s growing assertiveness and ambitions to extend its global reach — helped by a budget swelled by revenues from energy exports. Russia’s other aircraft carriers have been decommissioned or sold. The television report did not say why flights from the Admiral Kuznetsov had been halted.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
1. Return to sea.
2. Re-learn how expensive CV’s can be
3. Rinse/repeat as necessary
- SJS
I ain’t afraid of no ghost!
Lex,
Thing is, the Russkies don’t use catapults. They use a ski-ramp to fling those Mig-29’s into the sky. I watched some videos of them and was quite amazed, although, to be honest, not one of those birds was armed. No drop tanks, missiles, etc. Just slick wings and afterburners, but they DID rise off the deck pretty well and cleanly.
I suspect that they are, however, still trying to solve the heat/blast problem with the Yak Forgers. They had a deveil of a time with them burning holes through the surface and even deck plates on the Moskva & Kiev classes. Makes you wonder how we’ll fare with that new Marine STOVL, eh?
Respects,
Doesn’t the Kuznetsov use some form of hydraulic chocks that serve as holdbacks that recede into the deck following engine runup and flight crew salute? Not a catapult, but a form of assisted deck launch.
The Kuz doesn’t use cat’s, they just do deck runs into that ski jump on the bow. You can see the single dashed line that goes from the bow down into the landing area to the oil slick on the port side. That’s where the JBD and the hydraulic wheel chocks are, their version of the holdback. So there isn’t really any possibility for simultaneous launch and recovery.
The Ruskies use variants of the Su-27 for carrier ops. The navalized MiG-29 never made it past the prototype phase, and they stuck with the much larger FLANKER family.
For a size comparison of how this relates to US equipment, imagine launching and recovering F-14 size aircraft from an LHA size ship, without a catapult, in very cold water, on a ship that doesn’t move very fast to generate it’s own wind. Those Ruskies got balls.
I don’t recall them every using VTOL (YAK/FORGER) from this ship. I think the deck is too thin for the heat, as AW1 Tim pointed out.
I think the thing that would scare me more than the FLANKERs are all the vertical launch missiles they have in the forward flight deck. The resolution may be too poor on this picture to see them, but they used to be there just aft of the ramp.
Cap’n, et al,
Just how big is the Kuznetsov? It is clearly an oil burner. If Semicolon is correct and the ship still carries those anti-ship missles, there can’t be much room for hangar space. Thus, I don’t see a very large air wing.
Also, another thought. Could this be a form of Russian presidential campaigning? I do believe Mr. Putin is up for re-election sometime in the next couple of years.
“Russian presidential campaigning?”
Some certainly believe it is. However, Putin by law cannot run in the March 2008 elections for a 3rd term.
Nevertheless, some believe there is a move afoot to eliminate this term limit and indeed have Putin re-elected. More likely though, this increased Russian militarism under Putin is designed to improve his named successor’s chances of winning the election.
While not in the 2015 plan, the RuN (heh, how do ya like THAT abbreviation
) plans to have up to 6 nuclear powered CVNs with catapults, etc., akin to the Charles de Gaulle by 2030. Yeah, if wishes were fishes… As part of that plan they intend to construct a large drydock for building 100,000 ton LNG carriers. Projected airwing is 30-40 fixed wing a/c.
The reality of the situation is that they will get to one, maybe two and realize (all over again) how d*mn expensive carriers, their airwings and supporting infrastructure are to pay for. As it is, they can’t even complete the work on the ex-Gorshkov for the IN after having burned through all the money fronted by India and still being some 2-3 years behind schedule.
Welcome back to the big leagues tovarishchii – just don’t forget to pay at the door first.
-SJS
Putin won’t go for a third term – his party’s sock puppet candidate, Ivanov has the inside track over the other dwarfs running for office.
What you are seeing is partly domestic politics, partly nationislt ego and partly business practical sense. eh? you say…business sense?
Yep – if you are looking to grow your economy on something other than oil/gas revenue(big reserves but challenges accessing and delivering same) by say, heavy manufacturing, you go to what you traditionally have done best – marketing arms to 2nd tier and lower states that need to modernize their forces. Of course, if your military has been discredited and out of sight for the last 15 years (save for adventures in Chechnya) then you need to boost its image (and by extension its equipment) by making bold pronouncements, tweaking the big kid on the block’s nose (because, you know, everyone else already does), and begin several high-vis activities (like resuming long-range bomber flights).
This isn’t meant to be dismissive of
SovietRussian rhetoric – we will need to address the challenges and changes presented across a broad front by Russian forces and what we are seeing now is just the leading edge of the next long war (taken in with the challenges posed by a growing China and restive India, among others). Big Navy better get ready and quit d*cking around with vaporware ships, subs and aircraft because quantity is going to be as important as quality in the next war.But hey, I’m just a troglodyte Cold Warrior
-SJS
Any chance that all of this activity are actually the death spasms of mother Russia?
For what it’s worth, maybe the Russians are, to use a poker analogy, bluffing by feigning a astrong hand when they are actually holding a weak hand. I can’t remember where I read it, but someone noted that the Russians are very good at playing a weak hand strong.
1. Overall length is about 300m.
2. The missile launcher in the forward deck are SSMs- SS-N-19 which may not be in service any more.
3. There are three launch positions. One at the forward end of the starb’d edge of the landing strip (orange stripe), one under the tractors forward of the helos, and the third at the aft end of the port dashed line.
Cheers
Is the Kuznetsov Air Boss job a hard fill?
Man, I hate to see this. We’ve got enough problems without Russia getting frisky again…
Jim C
The Cold War arms race broke the Soviet Union… in my opninion, this new arms race will do the same to this useless bunch. Best
Oh, and it gets better. The Russians are planning to build six – yes, six – new carriers.
The elevators, two IIRC, carry one bird at a time, barely. So they won’t be carrying too large an air wing.