Russian Aircraft Carriers – and catapults

We had a thread going a few weeks back about the Russian aircraft carrier – Admiral Kuznetsov – and the merits of ski jumps vs catapults etc.

I recently found a few drawings in Andrei Fomins excellent book on the Su-27K & Su-33 – see here :- http://www.duffeyk.fsnet.co.uk/su33book.html

These show some of the design studies for Soviet carriers – and include proposals with two and three catapults.

The final design was to be a development of Kuznetsov (to be called Ulyanovsk) that had the best of both worlds – a bow ski jump for the Su-27K fighters and two waist cats for the turboprop Yak-44AEW a/c :-

The rest of the drawings – and some photos of models – can be found on my website at :- http://www.duffeyk.fsnet.co.uk/russian_carriers.html

I have also included a few small drawings of the proposed MiG-23A & K plus the Beriev P-42 ASW a/c and the Yak-44 AEW design that were being proposed to equip these ships.

Enjoy………..

Ken