Lets look at exactly what was said…

So they have built a dock designed to build large LNG tanker vessels to the west, and anticipate using said docks also for the production of aircraft carrier vessels. The project they are talking about will be “not less than” 100m long but then there are frigates like the Neustrashimyy that are not less than 100m long… 129m in fact. Perhaps the new carrier will be a double hulled cat design. If the requirement is fleet air defence then catapaults would only be needed for AEW aircraft. Making it nuclear powered would greatly improve its reach, and also provide lots of electrical power for an EM catapault if they want heavy AEW on board.
Talk of multiroled modular vessels suggests its escorts might not be custom designed like AEGIS cruisers, but a modular cruiser escort with fairly heavy air defence armament based on S-400 type weapons would be quite potent.

Compare a carrier of just over 100m length with 30 combat aircraft including fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft with the current Kuznetsov which is 300m long and has about 54 operational aircraft on board.

Personally I think these new carriers might be relatively cheap to buy and operate and could be used in pairs to provide 24/7 coverage of a naval unit. For smaller navies individual or pairs of such vessels might be much more affordable than even a single Kiev or larger class vessel.
They would likely be flexible enough to act as helo carriers for disaster efforts too and with nuclear propulsion should be able to get to disaster areas quicker.

If these ‘carriers’ are only 129 metres long they are only going to be flying helicopters. The smallest of the Harrier Carriers is 162 metres. There is no way this thing could realistically operate any existing Russian fixed wing aircraft at that size- probably not even Harriers or F-35s either. Whilst I realise that your figures are pure conjecture it sounds like these ships will be nothing more than helicopter carriers so I would forget about the idea of catapults and probably nuclear propulsion too.

Not sure I understand all of alertken’s post but I think I agree with it.

Another factor which badly affected British airliner construction was that, by and large, the designs churned out by the manufacturers were based on official government requirements – usually for the national airlines or the Board of Trade.

The idea of polling world airlines to find out what they actually might want was something which the UK manufacturers rarely did. As a result, their projects were always at the whim of the British government or the viscitudes of the UK airlines. It was only AFTER a project had got the go ahead that some marketing work might be carried out to see whether other airlines might be interested in the design.

In that respect, airliner manufacturing in Britain was not a lot different to military aircraft building i.e government based specifications and government based orders.

The 146 suffered because Hawker Siddeley would not go ahead with the project in 1973 without government backing. It wasn’t unril BAe was formed in 1977 that the project got the go-ahead. I wonder how much more successful the 146 would have been if it had entered service in 1976/77 rather than 1981/82?

Thats pretty much what we are all saying. It was that attitude that resulted in the cancellation of the VC-7 when the prototype was 95% complete, that resulted in the scaling down of the Trident and the original hot an high short field requirements for the VC-10.

At the time there were white elephants such as the Princess, the Brabazon, the Rotodyne and dare I say it Concorde as well that were absorbing funds that they did not deserve.

I have always felt that Britain still had a chance after the Comet 1 but that the fate was sealed fairly soon afterwards.:(

The other factor was the plethora of different companies involved. Had the British Aviation industry been consolidated (two companys just for a bit of competition) much earlier it might have stood more of a chance.

I know its a bit off topic but does anyone have any images of the proposed Tyne powered Rotodyne?

My own humble opinion on this is that the damage was done decades ago. A series of poor decisions and design requirements in the 60s in particular. The scaling down of the original Trident design, the decision not to complete the VC-7, the initial requirements for the VC-10. All conspired to destine the british commercial aerospace industry to a slow and agonising death.

SLL: Mate the latest issue of “The Navy” has an article about the PLAN’s carrier wishes, with a huge big pic of the Varyag sitting nicely in Dalian, all painted and finished- they said that she was due for sea trails later in the year- since this is a quaterly mag, one can only assume that she has already put to sea for the start of their testing period (yes I do know the problems with assuming- but I know the Chinese and I also remember those here who said that I was off my rocker claiming that Varyag was going to be a Carrier in the PLAN service- Guess I can’t be wrong will much considering my experience- sorry if that sounds a little on the arrogant side).

With all due respect Ja if the Varyag had left Dalian the internet would be covered in pictures of it. I would take that article with a grain of salt. There is till dispute as to whether the ship even has engines and the last bunch of photos showed absolutely no equipment fitted.

Just playing devil’s advocate here – would developing a top-notch SSN perhaps go a longer way in countering the growing PLAN threat for Japan than a carrier? China’s ASW is improving, but is still inadequate against the first rate submarine technology that the JMSDF can field – if the Japanese were to put a reactor in one, they would immediately negate the mobility advantage that Chinese SSNs currently hold over Japan’s SSKs. Would that not bring their superior silencing and sonar technology to bear even better?

Unfortunately, I believe an SSN would NOT come with less political baggage for Japan, although it would be internal rather than international. The Japanese public doesn’t seem to be particularly fond of nuclear powered ships, or perhaps the marriage of nuclear technology (which they are certainly big believers in for power generation!) and military applications in general.

That could actually be the best way forward, SSN’s have just as much if not more sea control value than carriers in some respects.

Japan already has the essentials IMO, some superb SSK’s, excellent surface combatants, a new maritime patrol/AWS platform at an advanced stage of development, some very good maritime strike fighters and missiles of an excellent quality. Really, from a practical point of view they’re already pretty well sorted and just need to continue developments as they are. That’s my view anyway. The 16DDH gives them an excellent new ASW platform very similar to the concept of the ASW cruiser that spawned the Invincible class and it’ll be useful for humanitarian relief ops and general support of Japanese state agencies, seems a very useful ship.

That was pretty much what I was trying to say, I am how interested in what people might think are suitable future developments.;)

Doubtful as the initial article was (no reliable sources whatsoever, nothing substantial from
Rosoboronexport), it’s now in public that it was nothing but a big pile of fearmongering nonsense. Typically, it was launched only a few days before the announcement of US defense industries being sponsored to make goodies for
Middle Eastern do-gooders.

Someone cynical might consider the original report US agitprop. Personally, i think this should convince anyone to become cynical.

From FarsNews, the Iranian press agency at http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8605100449.

I cant say that i am surprised, its the Iranian Air Force I feel sorry for, forced to struggle on with what little it has now whilst waiting for the thus far rather pathetic products of the indigenous aerospace industry.

So in other words, since the F-22’s secrets are eventually going to be leaked by Americans anyway, selling the F-22 overseas wouldn’t make a difference in real terms. Well, be that as it may, I still think that there are varying degrees of leaks and that the rate at which information is leaked over time is relevant, at least until someone who can collect everything one would need to know in order to build F-22s from scratch does so and ships the package off to Russia or China. 🙂

Obviously if you export, especially unconditionally, you increase the possibility of a leak. However you have to balance that against the strategic advantages of keeping your closest allies well equipped.