U.S. media have been seriously deceived by the Fujian, and its performance is absolutely more than 60% superior to the Nimitz class!
Recently, U.S. media admitted that their judgments on China's Fujian aircraft carrier have frequently "crashed." They either underestimated its catapult efficiency or misinterpreted the design logic of the carrier-based aircraft.
A video showing the Fujian conducting an empty-load electromagnetic catapult test, in which the slider instantly accelerated from the front of the deck and shot out of the bow, with the entire process clean and smooth, without any hesitation. Many American experts' first reaction was: "Is this video accelerated?" Even a retired U.S. officer publicly stated, "It's impossible to be that fast," suspecting the video had been processed.
But the fact is, this video was not accelerated — on the contrary, it truly demonstrated the performance of China's independently developed medium-voltage direct current electromagnetic catapult system.
How strong is this system? Data speaks: The electromagnetic catapult interval time of the Fujian has been compressed to within 45 seconds, meaning that under ideal conditions, it can support 270 to 300 sorties per day of carrier-based aircraft. For comparison, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier can achieve about 220 to 240 sorties per day during high-intensity combat; while the Ford class was designed for over 300 sorties per day, but due to system stability issues, its actual performance has long failed to meet expectations. In other words, the Fujian not only does not lag behind, but may have already approached or even exceeded the current U.S. mainstay carriers in this core indicator of sortie efficiency.
However, even before the Fujian was officially commissioned, some U.S. experts had already drawn conclusions based on a photo of the deck: the landing area angle of the Fujian is only 6 degrees, while U.S. carriers generally use 9 degrees, so they claimed that "its combat capability is at most 60% of the Nimitz class." This conclusion sounds reasonable at first, but actually has many flaws.
The landing angle is just one variable of the deck layout, and it also needs to be comprehensively evaluated in combination with the response speed of the arresting system, the deck scheduling process, and the position of the island. More importantly, the Fujian uses full-electric propulsion and an integrated power system, providing sufficient power redundancy for electromagnetic catapults and future high-energy weapons — a structural advantage that the Nimitz class cannot match at all.
Another typical misjudgment comes from observing the J-35 carrier-based aircraft. Some U.S. commentators saw that the J-35 did not carry missiles during the catapult test and thus concluded that its catapult load capacity was insufficient, "not even able to carry basic weapons." They didn't realize that as a fifth-generation stealth fighter, the J-35 was originally designed with internal weapon bays, and external hangars would damage its stealth performance.
Not carrying missiles actually indicates that the test focused on aerodynamics and catapult compatibility, rather than the maximum combat load. In fact, the official sources have already disclosed that the Fujian has completed "full fuel and full load" catapult verification of multiple types of carrier-based aircraft, including the J-15T and J-35, proving that its electromagnetic catapult system is fully capable of delivering combat loads in real combat.
In summary, the so-called "Fujian misled U.S. experts" is essentially not China "misleading," but some U.S. analysts are still stuck in old paradigms — understanding the electromagnetic era with the logic of the steam age, inferring system performance from platform appearance, and replacing system assessment with isolated parameters. The result is that they underestimate the technological leap represented by a truly new-generation aircraft carrier.
Original text: www.toutiao.com/article/1849000944145543/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.