By: Andy Wong Ming Jun
On September 22, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy released unprecedented footage of test flight operations aboard its newest and largest aircraft carrier Fujian, showcasing three carrier warplane types expected to form the backbone of its carrier air wing and challenge US dominance of the Asia-Pacific.
The footage indicates China has leapfrogged the US in terms of successful adoption of electromagnetic catapults for launching some of the world’s most advanced and heaviest carrier warplanes. It has also managed with surprising speed to develop and train its own carrier air operations to a level proficient enough to launch and recover all four elements of its air wing – airborne early warning, electronic warfare, fixed-wing combat aircraft, and multi-role helicopters.
Initial global shock and concern at China’s naval modernization efforts has been tempered by deeper analysis which hints that substantial portions of the released footage were originally taken earlier between March 18 and April 1. According to naval analyst Alex Luck, the release of video footage taken more than five months earlier was deliberately timed to coincide with the high-profile ninth sea trial of the Fujian so as to make it seem as if China had only just achieved its latest breakthrough in carrier air operations. Fujian is currently on sea trials in the South China Sea, after transiting the Taiwan Strait earlier on September 12 which caught global headlines but was only speculated as a matter of moving her to China’s substantial naval base facility at Yulin in Sanya, Hainan Island…
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