Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning

The unfinished Varyag in 2001

• Riga
• Varyag

• Unknown number of Shenyang J -15
• Unknown number of Kamov Ka -31

Liaoning (Chinese辽宁 号 航空母舰, Pinyin Liao Ning Hao Hangkong mǔ jiàn ) is the first aircraft carrier of the Navy of the People's Republic of China. The ship belongs to the Admiral Kuznetsov class and was built under the name Varyag for the Soviet Navy, but was never completed and was sold to China in 1998. There he was, despite the contrary view of the Chinese government fully refurbished, equipped and ran out to a first test ride from the port of Dalian on August 10, 2011. On September 25, 2012, the ship of the Navy of the People's Republic of China was officially handed over.

History

Construction

The aircraft carrier was laid in December 1985 in Nikolayev on the Black Sea as Riga to Kiel. In November or December 1988, the ship was launched.

End of 1991, the Russian Defense Ministry decided to stop funding the now -called Varyag aircraft carrier. The yard lying now in Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union presented in January 1992, the work, as the aircraft carrier was completed at about 70%. Structurally, the ship was finished, but not yet equipped. It lacked drive, electronic systems and weaponry. The total cost should be the equivalent of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars, which would have been for the completion still raise some $ 500 million.

The ownership of the carrier went after the collapse of the Soviet Union to Ukraine over, but did not provide funds for the continued construction available.

Sale

Ukraine sought the mid-1990s in vain to locate a buyer and put the Varyag 1998 auction. At 20 million dollars a businessman from Macao was awarded the contract. He claimed to want to convert the ship into a floating hotel and casino, a military use was banned in the treaty.

In 2000, the Varyag was towed from the shipyard. Turkey officially harbored against the drive and rudderless ship safety concerns and initially said why the passage through the Bosphorus. It was not until the end of 2001, according to the provision of a security in the amount of one million dollars, the carrier was allowed to pass through the road. As the operator of the Suez Canal denied the carrier passage, the company dragged the Varyag around the Cape of Good Hope. 2002 the ship reached Macao, however, the entrepreneur could produce no casino license, the property of the Company amounted to approximately $ 125,000. It is widely assumed that the casino operator was a front company of the Chinese People's Navy. Because the carrier was not allowed to anchor off Macao, the Varyag was launched in a dry dock in Dalian.

Renewed military use

2005, Liaoning was allowed back in the water, completely painted in Navy gray. The scaffolding around the bridge were removed. After the ship was - interrupted by further stays in dry dock - at various piers in Dalian. Rumors that China overtake the carrier, fertigbauen and could call into service, were nourished by the numerous works. On 19 January 2011 it was reported that the vessel actually am nearing completion and should be the first aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy. On 10 August 2011, the first test run took place. In December 2011, an American company get photographs of the vessel on the high seas.

It is speculated that the carriers with 20 fighter aircraft to be equipped Shenyang J -15 and 20 helicopters. On September 25, 2012, the aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy was officially placed under the new name in Liaoning service.

Training operation

Until the full operational capability of the aircraft carrier three or four years will pass, in which the ship numerous exercises in the interaction has to go through with other ships and training of pilots, according to estimates by Western experts.

For training purposes, a mock-up of the aircraft carrier was built on the mainland in a research institute of the Chinese Navy in Wuhan. (30 ° 25 ' 21 "N and 114 ° 15' 44" O30.422477114.262104 )

In November 2012, a plane of type Shenyang J -15 has landed on the aircraft carrier for the first time. This was a " symbol of the operational combat capability of an aircraft carrier " was declared then in Chinese state television.

Since February 28, 2013, the aircraft carrier in the new base is stationed in Dazhu Shan 50 km southwest of Qingdao.

Beginning in July 2013 were the first pilots and deck crew license to landings on the aircraft carrier after they had carried on a 25-day test drive an undisclosed number of takeoffs and landings.

On November 26, 2013, the aircraft carrier was accompanied by two frigates and two destroyers from its first exercise on the high seas and in the South China Sea, after all the previous exercises in the Yellow Sea had taken place. For this exercise, it came to the serious incident between the Chinese and the U.S. Navy since 2009 in the South China Sea, as a landing ship of the carrier group on December 5, the price of the guided missile cruiser Cowpens cruised less than 500 meters before this, whereby the Cowpens to a evasive maneuver was forced. According to the Chinese navy the Cowpens have followed and harassed the carrier strike group and had penetrated into the interior, 45 km measured, defense perimeter of the group. The Cowpens was in a position where they could watch the carrier group well, and carried out monitoring activities. Both ships had communicated with each other in a professional manner. Then the Cowpens left the defense zone. While the U.S. defense secretary Chuck Hagel "irresponsible" called the maneuver, gave to the Chinese Navy, you 've kept it strictly to the rules.

There is a long simmering dispute over territorial claims in the South China Sea; under him suspected to giant oil and gas fields. Beijing claims the majority of the sea itself ( only China's southernmost territory, the island province of Hainan, projects into this water ). The Philippine President Benigno Aquino III. promoted in February 2014 to support the territorial dispute with China: In an interview with The New York Times, he drew parallels to the delivery of the Sudetenland to Germany in the autumn of 1938 ( Sudeten ).

In April 2014, Zhang Zheng is the captain of the aircraft carrier.