Has China surpassed Russia in catapult production?

China's recent announcement that it has successfully produced and tested an aircraft catapult system for the second time shows that Beijing has surpassed Russia in this technology.

China Daily quoted Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo, chairman of the Chinese Navy's expert advisory committee, as saying that Chinese engineers have made great progress in developing aircraft catapults for use on aircraft carriers.

The aircraft catapult system, which can help aircraft take off more easily from aircraft carriers, can be considered a breakthrough in China's military industry. Yin Zhuo revealed that the new system has undergone many tests with J-15 carrier-based fighters and has been successful beyond expectations.

China launched its domestically built aircraft carrier in early 2017.

It is known that this is the second time since 2016 that China has announced the successful development of a carrier-based aircraft catapult. However, surprisingly, while continuously declaring success with catapult technology, the model of China's new aircraft carrier is still designed with a ski-jump deck. This shows that China has not been successful in developing a catapult system similar to the US.

This assessment is completely grounded when in early March 2015, the People's Daily of China reported on Chinese television news that images showed a facility suspected of testing China's aircraft carrier catapult. According to military expert Li Li, with these images, Beijing is making "fundamental" and strategic breakthroughs in the important cutting-edge technology field of aircraft carriers.

According to Ly Ly, catapults are divided into steam catapults and electromagnetic catapults. Steam catapults have limited conditions of use, while electromagnetic catapults help aircraft take off in conditions such as regardless of meteorological conditions, and have important strategic significance.

When asked what type of launcher is shown in the image, Chinese expert Cao Weidong said that the testing area in the image could be used as both a steam launch testing facility and an electromagnetic launch testing facility.

According to Cao Weidong, the research and development of catapults is to promote the development of aircraft carriers in the future. China's current aircraft carrier Liaoning uses a ski-jump runway, but this type of runway cannot take off fixed-wing early warning aircraft, which limits the comprehensive combat capability of the aircraft carrier.

Cao Weidong believes that China does not only need to build an aircraft carrier, so in the future it needs to focus on a method with stronger combat capabilities. "Using catapults is the development direction of aircraft carriers in the future. If China's industrial level, capital and technological capabilities are sufficient, the next step is for domestic aircraft carriers to use electromagnetic catapults."

The catapult of an aircraft carrier is an important device for aircraft to take off quickly on the ship, catapult takeoff is more efficient than the ski-jump takeoff currently used on the Liaoning aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy; catapult takeoff is currently the only naval aircraft takeoff method of the US military.

The United States was the first country to use electromagnetic catapults on aircraft carriers, and France could only buy American products. Aircraft carrier catapults play an important role in allowing naval aircraft to quickly enter air combat, improving combat effectiveness.

China's development of catapults for aircraft carriers is "a logical thing to do," Cao Weidong said. Despite the confident announcement of the development of the catapult system, the first images of China's new domestically built aircraft carrier appeared with a ski-jump-style flight deck.

According to Baodatviet