China’s first entirely home-built aircraft carrier began sea trials Sunday in a sign of the growing sophistication of the country’s domestic arms industry.
BEIJING – China’s first entirely home-built aircraft carrier began sea trials Sunday in a sign of the growing sophistication of the country’s domestic arms industry.
The still-unnamed ship left dock in the northern port of Dalian at 7:00 a.m. to “test the reliability and stability of its propulsion and other system,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The Liaoning provincial maritime safety bureau issued an order for shipping to avoid a section of ocean southeast of the city between Sunday and Friday.
The 50,000-ton carrier will likely be formally commissioned sometime before 2020 following the completion of sea trials and the arrival of its full air complement.
The new carrier is based on the former Soviet Union’s Kuznetsov-class design, with a ski jump-style deck for taking off and a conventional oil-fueled steam turbine power plant.
