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Sailors ‘training hard’ on Liaoning
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The Chinese Navy is using its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, for training and testing and will decide on an operational carrier for the fleet after a few years of evaluation, Admiral Wu Shengli said.
The Navy chief of the People’s Liberation Army, on a military-to-military visit with his American counterpart, told US reporters at the Washington Navy Yard that Chinese sailors would carry out “very heavy” training over the next two or three years as they assess the carrier.
“After the training and experimentation we will have a final evaluation on the development of the aircraft carrier for the PLA Navy,” said Wu, whose delegation included the commander of the Liaoning and the first pilot to land on its flight deck.
The Chinese carrier was built on the shell of a Soviet-era vessel that China purchased from Ukraine. China revamped the ship, which was formally commissioned in September 2012. Flight operations began two months later.
Senior Captain Zhang Zheng, the commander of the Liaoning, said the carrier was smaller than US aircraft carriers and had a ski jump-style ramp at the end of its longest runway.
“We have around 36 airplanes operating on board our ship,” he told reporters. “And we are still practicing and doing tests and experiments for the equipment and systems.”
Wu, Zhang and Captain Dai Ming Meng, the pilot who first landed on the carrier, visited several American ships in California earlier this week, including the carrier USS Carl Vinson, where they met with their counterparts.
“We talked in great detail in San Diego with our aviation people and Admiral Wu’s aviation people,” said Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the US Chief of Naval Operations, who hosted Wu. “It was great and inspiring to see two professionals talk about a common challenge — aviation from an aircraft carrier.”
Wu received a ceremonial 19-gun salute at the Washington Navy Yard, the US Navy’s oldest shore establishment, during his formal welcoming ceremony on Thursday.
He and his delegation visited the Pentagon later for further discussions.
Wu’s visit was part of stepped-up efforts to improve military-to-military ties between the US and China following a break in 2009 due to US military sales to Taiwan.
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