Say Hello to the Fujian

China’s new aircraft carrier just completed her first round of sea trials:

China’s third aircraft carrier Fujian (18) left Shanghai on Wednesday morning to conduct its first sea trial, according to a report by People’s Liberation Army News. Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) first batch of female naval aviators carried out their first solo flight on Apr. 25.
Fujian left Jiangnan Shipyard at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, according to PLA News, with the sea trial being conducted to test and verify the reliability and stability of the carrier’s power, electrical and other systems. No details were given as to the location or duration of the sea trials, but the China Maritime Safety Administration issued a navigational hazard safety notice for an area 80 miles away from Shanghai starting from Wednesday and concluding on May 9. The PLA News report stated that since the carrier was launched in 2022, its construction has been on schedule and it had completed its mooring trials, equipment adjustment and met the technical requirements to sail for sea trials.

I answered some questions for RFA, but honestly it’s mostly guesswork at this point. Pretty nice ship, tho; just from an aesthetic point of view I love the island.

I think that Fujian will be the most formidable (in terms relative to contemporary US capabilities) adversarial surface warship to enter service since… maybe HIJMS Taiho in 1944? That’s a very rough and I’m open to being demonstrably wrong, but she looks like an impressive ship. It will take the Chinese a while to master CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recover) operations but Fujian is large enough to generate a sufficient number of sorties to make a serious impression.