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| Specifications For China's New Aircraft Carrier 'Fujian' Class 003 |
International Military - China first launched the 'Fujian' supercarrier on June 17, 2022. The supercarrier is the Type 003 Class which was launched at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai. With the warship estimated to weigh between 85,000 and 100,000 tonnes, this is by far the largest known of the US Navy.
Quoted from Military Watch Magazine, the ship, named Fujian, is the third Chinese aircraft carrier capable of accommodating fixed-wing aircraft. This ship is also the same as the warships Liaoning and Shandong based on the Soviet Kuznetsov Class design. Not only that, this ship is also China's 6th ship overall with three 075 Class aircraft carriers.
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Construction was reported to have started in March 2015, around the same time that the 67,000-ton carrier Shandong was laid to rest at its sister shipyard in Dalian. Although the larger carrier took twice as long to complete with the launch of the Shandong just two years later.
In addition, the Type 003 Class ships are expected to have significant advantages over all other carrier classes. Both in terms of air wing capabilities. Designed with conventional rather than nuclear propulsion, the ship is expected to be intended for operations in the Pacific perhaps beyond East Asia to the East Pacific.
Its effective operations will be facilitated in large part by advances made by China's defense sector in the sophistication of warplanes, drones, destroyers, logistics vessels and other assets.
Quoted from aerotime.aero, this is also China's first aircraft carrier equipped with catapults to launch aircraft.
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The carrier's electromagnetic catapult should allow it to launch heavier aircraft. This means more payloads for fighter and attack jets, as well as new types of aircraft.
It is also expected to be the first to operate the FC-31, China's second fifth-generation fighter jet whose capacity to operate from an aircraft carrier has been hinted at by the country's state media.
Even so, there has been no official announcement about the type of aircraft that Fujian will bring. According to Xinhua, Fujian's displacement is more than 80,000 tons, which makes it second only to the Gerald R. Ford and Nimitz-class nuclear carriers operated by the US Navy.
While significantly larger than other conventionally powered aircraft carriers, the Fujian uses integrated electric propulsion. This is because China's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, currently known as the Type 004, is still under construction.