Before everyone gets excited by the arrestor wires and christmas tree on the large image you will find that the picture is of the Admiral Kuznetsov whilst she was named Tbilisi.

Im afraid the most recent images of the Varyag are too grainy to draw any firm conclusions. What can be said is that whilst the most recent pictures show a massively cleaned up hull I don’t see any of the signs that she is ready to be taken out to sea. There is none of the paraphanalia you would associate with a vessel about to enter service.

On the other hand its still to early to say what her final use is. I think we can look at three main possibilities.

1) She is beng prepared to enter service as a carrier but China is taking its time with fitting it out.

2)She is being completed as a training tool for the PLAN.

3)She is being completed as a casino/tourist attraction.

I think we will know more when china completes the deck painting of the Varyag.

With all this chatter about what the PLAN has and how much blah blah blah, would the RoCN really have a chance if the Mainland wanted to roll in? The RoCN is based on old service types because no one is willing to sell new equipment to Taiwan for fear of upsetting China. It’s rediculous, honestly. If I were the President of Taiwan, I would force the issue with the world, either accept us, or don’t, don’t give us cast offs especially in the face of such a fearsome threat that China is obviously presenting.

The PLAN is clearly more powerful then the RoCN now, Taiwans main deterrant is her Airforce and American intervention now.

On paper at least the 052c Lanzhou class are very powerful units with a significant multi role capability. This capability is a bit of enigma considering we know so little about the performance of the indigenous missile systems fitted to the class.

Things are made even more mysterious by the development of the 051c class which lacks much of the surface warfare capability and is focused on the AAW task. Whats even more fascinating is the fact that China appears to be hedging their bets and fitting the 051c class with the Russian RIF/S300F.

What type catapults will the French CVF use? C-13s or the new electros?

Considering America is treating technical details of the electro ones like a state secret France will probably get a variant of the c13.

Hi Hawkdriver05
I quote from the current issue of Flight International

“Kirkland says four non-Asian countries have already requested pricing and availability for some of the 100 ex-USN S-3s which will be available over the next four years and said at Asian Aerospace last month that Lockheed “spent a lot of time educating potential Asian users on the availability of the S-3”. He says the S-3 can be delivered “almost instantaneously” with 11,000h of service life remaining, while excess P-3s must be equipped with new wings to provide 15,000h or at least receive new critical wing parts to provide 5,000h of use.”
If there are now compatability issues, the S3 would be a good IMHO. Buddy tanking is not the ideal solution.

S3s are not the only thing at AMARC with plenty of hours left on them.

There are a number of A6E and A7E with criminally small flight hours on their airframes. I believe this situation developed because these types were retired early due to peace dividend and some airframes had not been that long out of the factory.

Hooray

After spending the last few months being frustrated with a lack of new Varyag images from Dailan its nice to see the Gorshkov in refit.

It looks like she is in the very early stages as she hasn’t even finished the strip down yet.

If China goes ahead and builds a carrier then it would be quite likely that Japan would change its helicopter cruiser concept into a proper carrier probably operating F35.

I don’t think there would be much issue with Japan breaking the ban on carrier construction. A few Asian countries would squeal a bit but in the end who could stop Japan.

Does anybody have any evidence for the Derby on Indian Shars, I have seen several reports saying that the plan to upgrade the SHARS with Israeli kit was dropped and I have never seen a photo of a SHAR with a derby, or a report of sales of that missile to India.

To be honest I know as much as you do.

It looks like the Indian SHARS are getting some Israeli kit including the radar and the Derby was on the cards. Things could certainly change, what I do know is the Indian navy didn’t want to induct the standard UK spec F/A2 into service. If they are buying 10 airframes from the UK they will more than likely strip out much of the UK kit.