"China's Testing Woes Remind That Developing ..." Topic

… Carrier Planes Is Hard.
"The ongoing trials of China's first aircraft carrier and her ship-based jet fighters represent a major leap ahead in capability for the People's Liberation Army Navy. But the hype surrounding Lioaning's debut test cruise last summer and the inaugural landing of her J-15 fighters in late November masks an important truth, one the world's other carrier powers have long known.

Developing a flattop and its planes is hard, requiring years of trial and error and no small amount of risk. And while China's ascent as a naval power might seem unstoppable, the saga of China's first seagoing fighter pilots proves otherwise. A lot of things can, have and will go wrong, casting into doubt whether Beijing will possess a truly useful carrier capability any time soon.

There have been at least three close calls involving the small force of experimental J-15s since the Chinese navy established its initial carrier aviation task force in late 2006. The accidents and near-accidents are detailed in a remarkable story published this week on the Chinese website Sina remarkable because Sina gets its information directly from state-run media outlets, which rarely cop to mistakes on the part of the mighty Chinese military.

In the first of the incidents, all of which took place between June 2011 and last November, an unnamed aviator referred to only as a Test Pilot was preparing to land his J-15 at the main military flight test center in Xian in central China when a warning light flashed red, indicating a hydraulics leak.

The emergency was not exactly surprising. The J-15 is an unlicensed copy of a variant of the Russian Su-27. China's other Su-27 knockoff, called the J-11B, has serious quality-control issues. The J-11B program is in big trouble, a U.S. source told Defense News. The Chinese have lost a lot of aircraft in crashes.¡± It looked like Pilot C might become the next casualty.

The aviator hurried to lower his plane's landing gear before the hydraulics totally failed. Test Pilot C firmly held the steering column, preoccupied with maintaining the aircraft's balance, Sina reported. He touched down, but no hydraulics meant no brakes. The airfield's ground crew activated the crash barrier most likely a pop-up cable that can be snagged by the jet's tailhook and the J-15 mercifully came to a stop on the runway.

Some time later, test Pilot B was performing mock carrier landings when his J-15 as speed suddenly reduced. One of the jet's two engines was failing a fire and explosion could soon follow. Pilot B quickly calculated his speed, height and distance from the runway and ¡°decisively switched the problem engine off… "
Full article here
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Not easy guys…

Amicalement
Armand

Its interesting stuff, but I'm not sure how any of the incidents described relate specifically to carrier ops. Or difficulties therein from inexperience. All the incidents seem to be exactly the type of incidents that happen all the time in air forces all around the world. Obviously dangerous and scarey, but I'm not convinced of the carrier link beyond the suggestion that the planes involved may ultimately serve on carriers.

Welcome to the big leagues, China. How many pilots are you willing to lose to develop the institutional knowledge on how to build, QA, maintain, and fly top-line aircraft?

I am reminded of a poster on the wall in my aircraft maintenance classroom. "Aviation, to an even greater extent than the sea, is horribly intolerant of even the slightest error." With a pic of a WW1 bird parked in the top of a tree.

"Welcome to the big leagues, China. How many pilots are you willing to lose to develop the institutional knowledge on how to build, QA, maintain, and fly top-line aircraft?"

A lot.

Far more than the U.S. would if it were starting from scratch today.

And all thats off the painted carrier deck. I'm waiting for the first night launch and traps on the REAL carrier. That'll be a real eye opener for our Chinese friends…

Is it rue that most aviators refer to a carrer landing as a "controlled crash"

Every one I know either online or in person will call it a controlled crash.

When they were doing pilot stress studies back in the late 1960s, early 1970s, (ie, during Vietnam War), they discovered that pilots had higher BP/heart rate/etc when landing than when getting shot at.

If you miss high, go around, hit the tanker, try it again. If you are low, however, you're going to die when you impact the fantail at 150knots. And did I mention that the fantail is normally moving up and down about 30 feet?

Yes, that is true Mapleleaf.

They have to come in fairly fast, since if they don't and botch it, they won't have enough airspeed to keep from landing in the drink.

I like the the Chinese do a cheap knock-off of everything--including their fighter planes! >;)

When the Chinese figure out good QA, then the world should be trembling. It's really surprising to me, when the Japanese are culturally obsessed with perfection and the Chinese aren't. Imperial Japanese culture is pretty much a copy/paste of Chinese culture from the early 600s AD.