Fujian, China's new advanced aircraft carrier 0:47
(CNN) --
The Chinese navy's new giant aircraft carrier, CNS Fujian, is expected to put to sea for the first time this year, the ship's chief executive said in an interview with state media.
In a report on the interview published Tuesday by the state-run
China Daily
, Captain Qian Shumin did not give an exact date for when the carrier will carry out its first sea excursions, but said that "the tests will contribute to the realization of the centenary goals." of the People's Liberation Army (EPL)”.
China launches Fujian, one of its most advanced aircraft carriers
That centenary, which comes in 2027, was mentioned by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October as a deadline for the PLA to meet its modernization goals.
The Fujian is the largest warship China has ever built and putting it into operation is a key component of the PLA Navy's goals.
The ship was launched to much fanfare on June 17 and is in the final stages of construction at a Shanghai shipyard.
advertising
Hawaii-based analyst Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, said he expects the first Fujian tests to take place in the spring.
"Based on the technologies and systems installed on the Fujian, the first sea trials will take place around March 2023 and will consist of basic engineering tests and ship maneuvering," said Schuster, former director of operations for the Center for US Pacific Command Joint Intelligence.
In addition, he said that the initial tests will probably last three to seven days.
They would be the first steps in a roughly 18-month series of tests that could see Fujian operational by October 2024, Schuster said.
“Each test will be followed by an examination of what went right and what went wrong;
and solutions to those problems will be identified and applied, be they human or technical equipment,” he said.
China puts its third most advanced aircraft carrier into operation.
It is called "Fujian" and seeks to rival those of the US.
With a displacement of around 80,000 metric tons of water, according to the
China Daily
report , the Fujian is 50% larger than China's two current serviceable aircraft carriers and puts the People's Liberation Army Navy in the league of supercarriers, as are the 100,000-ton US Nimitz-class ships.
It also shows that China is managing to match the technology of US carriers.
China's other two aircraft carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, are built on outdated Soviet technology.
Those two carriers used the ski jump launch system, in which planes simply take off from a small ramp, while the US carriers use a more advanced catapult system to launch their planes.
The Fujian, for its part, uses an electromagnetic catapult system, something the US only has on its newest operational aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford.
Schuster says that the integration of the Fujian air wing into its operations using that new technology will be the final part of its testing, and he expects it to arrive sometime in the summer of 2024.
Aircraft carrier
