And for the attachment of the catapult shuttle to the nose gear.

IF the nose gear is strong enough to handle the force… remember, you have enough pull at the outer end of the nose gear leg to pull the entire loaded aircraft forward at ~6Gs… that’s a lot of force.

Then the fuselage where the nose gear attaches has to be strong enough, and the forward fuselage has to be attached to the center fuselage well enough… all of this with strain directions opposite of those experienced by land-based aircraft.

This is one of the main reasons that catapult-rated aircraft tend to be purpose-designed, not adaptations of designs created for land-only use.

Or is it your belief that the Chinese will use a form of bridle launch?

I’m thinking along the lines of SAC modifying existing J-15s with bridle launch and reinforce new build J-15s for nose gear and add hold back bar if it hasn’t been done so already.

Is the stress of catapult launch so strong that the reinforcement of the aircraft for carrier landings can not take it? Or I presume the reinforcement for landings and catapult launch are in completely different areas of the aircraft and do not complement each other?

I think it is very likely J-15 can be modified for catapult launch. It’s just adding provision for a hold back bar I imagine?

Ok, then the question is, are the indigenous efforts of Taiwan able to produce products for the ROCAF which would deter or be able to defend against the PLAF? Particularly considering the recent advances made by mainland China?

Considering their aging F-5’s need to be retired in a few years and F-16s and M2Ks aren’t exactly young I think having the ROCAF deterring the PLA in general is not a viable option as it was about maybe just two decades ago.

Maybe an offensive weapon like an air launched cruise missile could cause some problems but if it’s a situation of dancing on the brink of independence, that threat would be unavoidable. But then there’d be probably US intervention etc to deal with

Erm isn’t this thread supposed to be about the Carriers sea trials, most of this discussion should really be in the PLAN thread so this can focus on what little info & images that resulted from the first sea trials !

First sea trial’s over lol. But I agree I don’t think there should be a seperate thread about the PLAN carrier seeing as there are only so few threads in this naval aviation forum.

ok,
then a simple straight ramp then,
at prevent the cat guy from shooting aircraft into ocean in heaving seas. 😀

and
If I remember correctly the centripetal acceleration from the curve is trivial compare to the non-flare 3 point landings these things has to survive. and if you have a ski-ramped cat, the forces should be minimum.
for a steam cat it would be nightmarish to engineer as you would essentially need a curved cylinder. for EM it’s another story.

if you can save some cat length, not a bad thing either.

I suppose. I just feel the extra complexity and reduced space etc doesn’t make the idea really practical.

every kilo of payload you can put on the aircraft matters.
having a ramp means a lower speed when off the deck, that means you don;t need to put as much accelerate on the aircraft from a cat. conversely it means when you do take off with a full cat, a bigger payload given an airplane and payload.

safer operations too.

It also means less space to spot aircraft. Also you either make a smaller catapult or add extra length for the ski jump?

I can’t imagine forcing a plane from the end of a catapult and onto a ramp is good for the plane either? There must be a reason the rest of te world hasn’t adopted or even widely tested this launch method and a catapult+ramp won’t be substantially easier or easier at all to develop as opposed to a catapult alone?

Any thoughts on weather the PLAN will develop catapults for their CVs?

Rumor is we might see them on the first pair. We’ll know soon enough.