Great, thanks for the thorough summary, that certainly looks like a plausible projection.

Yeah, after I posted that on a second looking I realised it was a single Island with raised aft stack.

The 075 LHD looks to be influenced by similar vessels like the Juan Carlos class and the Cavour.

The elevators are not positioning from Juan Carlos or Mistral.

The overall flight deck geometry and the forward area is more like Wasp or Trieste.

Full displacement should be some 31k tons.

Is not picture #924 the Type 002 Carrier? I thought the Type 003 was the planned Nuclear carrier that is a few years away from being laid down pending development of Nuclear technology for surface ships.

So the sequence so far is:

Type 001 (Varyag)
Type 001A
Type 002
Type 003

No, the 001A designation isn’t used by PLA watchers anymore, but it is still in use by some media people who don’t know any better.

https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/a-mid-2019-guide-to-chinese-aircraft-carriers/

• CV-16 Liaoning (sometimes referred as carrier 001): As China’s first aircraft carrier in service, this vessel was once commonly known as the Varyag. No change in name or designation.
• Carrier 002 (formerly known as “001A,” and is also sometimes referred to as CV-17, and may be named Shandong once commissioned): This ski jump carrier is derived from the CV-16 design, and is China’s first domestically built carrier which was launched from Dalian shipyard in 2017 and has been undergoing sea trials since mid 2018.
• Carrier 003 (formerly known as “002,” and is also sometimes referred to as CV-18): Currently under construction at Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai, this will be China’s second domestically built carrier and China’s first aircraft carrier equipped with catapults.
• Carrier 00X or 004 (formerly known as “003”): This designation has been used to refer both to China’s first eventual nuclear powered aircraft carrier, or a second conventional carrier equipped with catapults.

Sure it does. The CJ-1000 shows as much. It has a VERY slow development path. Unlike the established players, China doesn’t have decades of experience in single crystal superalloys and all of the bonded coats that goes with them. So they have to work cautiously. And, since the Ws-15 is a military project, they keep it tightly under wraps.

Yet we’ve seen pictures of CJ-1000 and received updates on its development relatively openly compared to other Chinese military engine programmes and certainly compared to WS-15

I think you are overplaying some very slight differences. Almost nothing was known about other Chinese engine projects (Ws-10, Ws-20, etc.) prior to flight testing. Pictures were sparse and usually of questionable validity and few if any reliable performance targets or program milestones were given. Even well after flight testing starts they are still kept under a hefty veil of secrecy – such as Ws-20 is still to this day.

In terms of PLA watching, I think those are some rather significant differences.
The fact that we had a picture of WS-19 in testing a few months ago considering how much earlier it is in its development cycle is one of the more blatant examples of it.

Let’s put this another way:
Chinese turbofan and engine programmes are generally more closely guarded than equivalent foreign programmes — with Chinese civilian engines being more open than military engines.
However, within military engine developments, WS-15 holds the title of being the most closely guarded by far for the stage of development it is said to be at, when compared to other military engines currently also being developed or past military engines that have been developed.

[USER=”31611″]Blitzo[/USER] – We don’t know if they have flown it yet. We really don’t know anything about it! We don’t know if the images shown reflect the final configuration of the engine (they may not). We don’t know whether the installation of the engine will require modifications to the J-20. We don’t know whether the program experienced a catastrophic incident either (the engine blew up story). We know more about Japan’s engine than China’s.

I didn’t suggest that WS-15 has flown yet — in fact I doubt it has yet at present. But I don’t see how any of what is written here relates to my previous comment.

The lack of pictures by themselves don’t, yes. Be it is certain that they are struggling in fielding relatively modern engine designs. We know that from their development path with the CJ-1000. The lack of Y-20s flying with the Ws-20 point in that direction too. And that IS almost certainly the reason for the tight secrecy in the project. China doesn’t like to look weak. And turbofan engine design and construction is one area where they still are.

I certainly agree that turbofans is an area where they are behind, and they obviously recognize it.

However, the logic that they are hiding WS-15 because they lack confidence in it because turbofans are an area where they are behind doesn’t really make sense, because if that was the case then we wouldn’t have more information and pictures about other Chinese engine programmes in the present or in the past when they were at similar or earlier stages of development compared to WS-15 (this includes WS-10 and WS-20 when they were at earlier stages of development, not to mention the more recent WS-19, all of which we had more knowledge and/or pictures about than WS-15 when they were at similar stages of development).

Instead, if we look at how much information or pictures we receive about various engine projects, WS-15 is actually the exception in regards to how little we know about it.
Considering all of the above, then what might explain the high secrecy surrounding WS-15? My answer is that I believe it is the most important project currently being worked on at AECC and there are levels of opsec surrounding it commensurate with its status.

[USER=”77107″]
[USER=”20787″]QuantumFX[/USER] – If they are flying it in secret it says a lot…they still don’t fully trust it yet.

That’s not really an exception though; I can’t think of any new Chinese engine that was not test flown in relative secrecy. There is also a well established pattern that more important military projects tend to be more restricted in terms of the pictures and information released to the public. Given the importance of something like WS-15, it is rather high in that regard.

One of the posts on SDF earlier this year translating some recent rumours of Chinese engines mentioned one goal was to attain design certification for WS-15 within 5 years, though I forget the relationship between that and being ready for mass service.

And as a cautionary note as always for people unaware, ignore every SCMP article there is about WS-15, their authors get it ridiculously wrong.

Nope, exactly the same! The picture is from a slightly different perspective. The flight deck is the same length, the yagi is parked at a different angle and there is a cover over the radar on the ciwis slightly distorting how it looks.

I’m not sure if quantum was trying to suggest that the two images were showing 052D vs 052DG or if he was saying both pictures were 052DG and merely pointing out the same features on two different photos of the same ship.

In any case, while the yagi is different to what we’ve seen before and the helipad is of course lengthened (which we’ve known for ages), the 1130 on the bow is not new to the 052DG. I think they’ve had 1130 since JN’s 8th 052D and DL’s 3rd 052D.

Basically from what I can see, the only confirmed and verified shoot down is that of an IAF Mig-21 with the pilot in Pakistan custody.

The additional PAF claim of 1 other IAF fighter jet downed has yet to be confirmed (and may have been retracted?), and the IAF claim of 1 PAF fighter downed has yet to be confirmed as well.

The Mi-17 loss is most likely a crash at this stage but the situation is evolving.

I think that’s more or less the situation so far?