Dunno why people are so obsessed with Chinese reinventing the wheel.

It’s just the catapult thing that cracks me up, dudes. Organization is obviously a great thing and the Brazilians pretty much adhere to the same color codes anyway (but the French have their own), so that’s not really what I meant.. Both the French and Brazil have cats on their respective carriers though, like the USN, necessitating those particular kind of officers. That, on the other hand, was my point. You don’t need officers enthusiastically keeping a watchful eye on the catapult sequence when there is none. You don’t see anything similar to that on other skijump carriers regardless of origin, simply because it is not needed. Being deck crew is a very dangerous job and you don’t put officers there if they serve no direct and obvious purpose…

Mind you we’re not sure what their operational methods are. It might make sense if we knew what those guys actually are.

As far as power projection goes, I don’t think having a single carrier quite cuts it, but in combination with other navy assets it sure boosts the capability and China has, or is pursuing, those assets.

Totally agree that one carrier is not really that useful (e.g. look at Charles de Gaulle being pulled off the line in Libya for refit).

However the Chinese have stated that the ship is a research and training vessel.

If the analysts are correct and China eventually builds a multi-carrier force then that will be true power projection.

True it won’t be the USN and nothing ever will. However it will be powerful in the Asia Pacific region.

And racism? Nah, anecdotes about cultural quirkiness? Yes.

Funnily enough most of these anecdotes are about Chinese copying and being useless.

Dr Snufflebag,

Your post seems pointless. So the Chinese have copied the Yank colour coding system? Whoopee do.

The main point is they now have a rudimentary carrier capability for the first time. And in time they will expand it and it will give them power projection capability for the first time since the 1500s.

To be honest all the China bashing on this and other forums reeks of racism.

Poland to replace Su-22 with UCAVs

Very interesting news.

In many ways it seems a downgrade as suggested birds are General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, IAI/Malat Heron TP, Elbit Systems Hermes 900 and turkish TAI Anka, all of which have less performance and payload than a Su-22.

I think it’s the first example of an airforce obtaining UCAVs as a cheap replacement for manned combat aircraft.

Malaysia, sure. Turkey… wot?

For the most part I’m fairly pessimistic about the export potential of 5th gen aircraft. Most nations don’t have the infrastructure to maintain and employ them effectively and lack the funds to develop it. The trend — as it has been for the last century now — is toward an increasing separation between the haves and the have-nots, and I think there will be many nations that won’t ever make the transition and will instead look to meet their security needs in other ways.

I think this post raises some excellent issues.

If you look at the 1970s poor countries often still had supersonic jets ala MiG-21 or F-5. A lot of them today (especially in Africa) barely have functional helicopters lets alone jets.

And many countries seem to be focusing on multi-role helicopters (especially Mi-25/35 Hind) or armed turboprop trainers ala EMB312 over jets.

Even many NATO/Western countries will probably never make the transition to stealth jets or will acquire them in such pitifully small numbers as to be next to useless for anything other than air policing.

EDIT: It’s amazing that when you look at it, sales of fast jets to true Third World countries are new build Chengdu J-7s, new build but more commonly surplus MiG-29 or surplus Su-25.

I understand where you are coming from, but what purpose does it serve to release mishap investigations in general? We’ve already spoken to the types of incidents that carry enough public interest (and involvement) to warrant a JAG or AIB being released. Those can and do become public knowledge. There is simply no purpose in releasing the others…….sorry, the general public doesn’t play for the team, and while it might be of personal interest to some, it serves no useful purpose. .

It’s called democracy and one of it’s key principles is transparency.

If anything the US needs to invest in more tactical/theatre airlift ala C-130J/C-27.

The C-130 fleet is for the most part slogged out C-130H’s as well as some even more ancient C-130Es.

C-17s are overkill for a lot of the missions flown by these types.

Oh and tankers! Definitely need some new tankers to replace those ageing KC-135s. I’m still not entirely convinced the new KC-46As will be delivered in a timely manner nor in the numbers required to replace the KC-135 in a meaningful way.

If anything I think the most important aircraft in the US fleet are those tankers. They give the US amazing reach without having to resort to aircraft carriers and ships.

And unlike most countries which at most operate a dozen tankers, the USA has 500+ KC-135/KC-130/KC-10s.

Truely formidable!