Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong carries out sea training
India has been operating aircraft carrier since 1961 and the Naval Aviation had actual super combat experience in 1971. In fact INS VIKARANT contributed a lot to an early end to the War and a rapid Liberation of Bangladesh.
Today India has once again two aircraft carriers with the second one being indigenous. The PLAN of Chinese Communist Party also has two aircraft Carrier But the first one a refurbished rust bucket LIAONING is suitable for coastal waters only and cannot venture into the Indian Ocean.
China’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, is an indigenous one but beset with problems right from the construction days. Now recently it conducted some combat-oriented training in the seas off Chinese Southern Coast. At the same time even the rusty Liaoning was demonstrating its movements in deep sea of Western Pacific.
The drill of the Shandong aircraft carrier started with several J-15 fighter jets taking off. During the exercise, the Shandong also carried out targeted training, gradually improved its landing and take-off, emergency response, and damage controlee the basics It also verified a large number of emergency response plans, training methods, and support models.
Since the commissioning only now Shandong has focused on the needs of the naval battlefield and carried out various tasks such as dispatching the maximum number of J-15 carrier-based fighter jets in a single batch, dispatching the maximum number of aircraft in multiple batches and landing and take-off in the night.
Meanwhile the rust Liaoning with two Type55 destroyers and few other ships was holding drills in Western Pacific to some how impress Japan and intimidate Taiwan. So probably China is trying to catch up with India in aircraft carriers’ capacity and capability to simultaneously operate with two different carriers in two different places.
With more exercises, the Shandong, which entered PLA Navy service in December 2019, is expected to gradually achieve some operational capability and try to cross the level of the Liaoning. However it will take quite few years before it reaches anywhere near the expertise of the Indian Naval Aviation.
