Vintage Chinese Aircraft carrier Liaoning Trying To Enhance Its Night Combat
A J-15 carrier-borne fighter jet takes off from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Liaoning during a maritime training exercise on July 1, 2017. The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and its carrier strike group carried out realistic training in an undisclosed sea area on July 1, 2017.
During the latest voyage by the Vintage refurbished Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, fighter jet pilot instructors from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Naval Aviation University reportedly received certification to operate on carriers at night. So only now they have likely become capable of coaching pilot cadets in nighttime carrier operations. This means China’s aircraft carriers will take quite some time till they get night combat-capability and the confidence to operate at night.
In the recent certification exam, several pilot instructors from the university steered J-15 fighter jets and landed on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Liaoning, which was sailing in the Bohai Sea on a somewhat windy night.
This marked that the university is now capable of coaching pilot cadets to operate carrier-based fighter jets at both daytime and nighttime.
The PLA’s’first batch of carrier-based fighter-jet pilots had tried their night operations in 2018 and only now they are getting fully certified. So now, having instructors gaining related techniques will allow them to teach cadets properly without letting the latter explore by themselves. This will help generate China’s aircraft carrier nighttime combat capability more efficiently than before.
“The biggest challenge of landing on a carrier at night is the low visibility, as there is no surrounding environment for reference. Relying on only light instructions on the carrier to accurately land on the small flight deck is a huge test to a pilot’s skill and courage, the PLA Daily quoted a landing signal officer on the Liaoning as saying.
Daytime takeoff and landing are already difficult and dangerous, as a carrier flight deck is much smaller than a land-based airfield, analysts pointed out.
In other navies that operate aircraft carriers, like those of the US. India and France, most of the pilots are qualified for nighttime operation In spite of the high difficulty. This is because nighttime operation is crucial in combat, as surprise attacks are easier at night, and if a long-distance operation starts in the afternoon, it would also require landing at night.
The Liaoning‘s latest voyage bagged many other results, including giving certification for daytime carrier operation to a new batch of pilot cadets, the PLA Daily report revealed.
Pilot instructors who operated at night and pilot cadets who operated during the day all succeeded in landing on their first tries, the report said, noting that the number of people who received a certificate in a single voyage by the Liaoning reached a record high.
Also during the voyage, an All female crew independently completed a support mission of dispatching helicopters, including Z-8 and Z-9, on the Liaoning for the first time, js7tv.cn, a news website affiliated with the PLA, reported in late July.
