Same way your car can catch fire.. fuel leak, either tank or fuel lines or engine.

My car doesn’t catch fire: I take care of my car.

It happens.

Logan Hartke

Freaky!

lets see, India cut the first steel for their carrier in 2005 and expect it to launch in 2010.. and yet that’s not ambitious and beyond their capabilities

Plate cutting is not the same as LAID DOWN
LAUNCH = put in water (it then still has to be fitted out) not in service
You need to look at laid-down to commissioned

From Bharat- Rakshak:http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/ships/future/185-indian-aircraft-carrier.html

Construction of the Indian carrier commenced with plate cutting on 11 April 2005. The keel is planned to be laid down in 2008.

Future Commissions:
Vikrant; Laid Down – December 2008, Launch – October 2010, Commissioning -2012.
Viraat; Laid Down – 2011, Launch – 2014, Commissioning – 2017.

In 1989 a plan was announced to build two new aircraft carriers.

In a landmark decision, the government finally sanctioned construction of a 32,000-ton vessel on 14 June 1999 with the Navy receiving a formal letter of intent from the Cabinet Committee on Security. The decision came seven years after the designs were originally conceived.

In February 2002, then-incumbent Chief of Naval Staff – Admiral Madhvendra Singh – stated that the commissioning of the ADS will take 8 to 10 years since CSL had not yet been modernized. > 2010-2012

In August 2006, then-incumbent Chief of Naval Staff – Admiral Arun Prakash – stated that the designation for the vessel has been changed from Air Defence Ship (ADS) to Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC). He also stated that delivery to the Indian Navy will be within 7 to 8 years and that would suggest a commissioning date of 2014.

In an interview to the Times of India, dated 01 December 2007, the Chief of Naval Staff – Admiral Sureesh Mehta – stated that the second IAC is already on the drawing board and at least three such vessels are planned. The Admiral also indicated that the first IAC will not be delayed beyond 2012, contrary to reports of a revised delivery schedule of 2014 – 2015.

In short, no one known for sure yet how long it is going to take. Odd that first of class would supposedly take just 4 years (2012) and second of class 6 years. Chances are therefor that 2014-2015 is more realistic for the first ship.

Some Russian news sources are suggesting a cargo aircraft (helicopter) caught fire on the flight deck during flight operations, and the sailor died while fighting the fire.

How does a cargo helicopter suddenly catch fire?

China has apparently made quite good usage of the soviet KV-4 plants and in fact they and their chinese derevations apparently is regarded in PLAN as the most trusted and confident propulsion arragments. Altough this gives grey hairs to PLAN DDG ambitions, it actually could solve issues regarding the carrier propulsion: Varyag was mented to have four twin-boiler/turbine arragments of the same type as already in use of PLANs vessels.

Agree: carriers are likely to use an oil burning steam plant. Nothing wrong with that, so long as they don’t explode as much as the russian plant ised in Kievs did.

All the facts and better quesses speaks that the carrier plans are at full steam in China. Wheter it’s completing Varyag or building indegenious hulls or both doesen’t matter, there will be carriers in emergin from china in next 10 years.

I fully agree about carrier plans.

it takes about 10 years to get some brand new weaponsystem fully operational in it’s full potential. I assume that this is quite good thumprule for carriers as well, tough the complexity of the whole aircraft carrier concept may take even more time. For PLAN you need to remember that it is still in transform state

“I concur!”

As for catabults, I’m 80% certain that the first generation of chinese carriers will be fielding the STOBAR arragement so no catabults is needed.

Yep. Don’t think what if any the catapults were left on the Australian carrier that the Chines layed hands on, but that would likely be on the ‘light’ side for todays jets.

Well, maybe some enjoy the fight more than the merits………..:confused:

I’m not going to speculate on that. My point was: either both camps are unable to make a strong enough case to convince or we’re dealing with believers (in which case there is no point trying to convince)

That is a fair point. However, the time it takes others is no indication on how fast China might be able to build carriers. After all, would you take the average European build time and cost of tankers or whatnot as a estimate of how long it will take Chinese yards to turn out similar vessels?

Not for those types of ships. But then again, when it comes to building experience, the situation with (modern) commercial shipbuilding is quite the reverse from that with naval shipbuilding. Just look at how French Mistral and Italian Cavour and Spanish BPE are being built.

Again, a fair point. But that does not give any indication of how long it will take China to build carriers.

The most experienced carrier builder (USA) takes 4.5 years for a carrier. With the exception of the midget-carrier the Spanish built for Thailand (which was delivered barely complete, with a lot of projected weapon systems etc not installed), there are no shorter build-times for modern postwar carrier, whether CTOL or STOBAR or STOVL. Assuming this for new PLAN carriers is optimistic, even when factoring in general shipbuilding expertise.

What’s the context?