"891" aircraft carrier project
Before the 048 project, China also had a "891" aircraft carrier project. The project began in January 1989, when it formally became an official project, named 891 project. Engineering was to establish the principle was to rely on China's own capacity, self-reliance development of a medium-sized aircraft carrier. The People’s Navy carried out relevant research projects around this project, including the overall structure of the ship, combat system, steam catapult, arresting device, as well as fixed-wing early warning aircraft and fighter aircraft.
In the late 1980s, following the project 707 and the Melbourne plan, China once again proposed a concept of a medium-sized aircraft carrier that is “based on domestic technology and does not exclude the introduction of foreign technology”. Its displacement is expected to be close to 80,000 tons and its length will exceed 270 meters.The carrier uses conventional power, equipped with steam catapults and landing arresting equipment, and its comprehensive performance exceeds that of the later Varyag.
The planned Chinese aircraft carrier was a self-developed conventional 50,000-ton-class power carrier with steam catapults, and the relevant research projects were carried out accordingly. The "891 Project" aircraft carrier demonstration project was based on the existing domestic level, the development of self-reliant development of a medium-sized aircraft carrier.
The Shanghai Institute of Navy launched a feasibility study on the design and construction of the project. They built an aircraft carrier model and tested at the 600 -meter-long pool and Taihu Lake in Jiangsu Province. Experiments were conducted in 1985, and the requirements of the Navy Admiral Liu Huaqing Guangzhou Naval Academy class aircraft carriers were established.
Admiral Liu Huaqing was the third commander ofthe PLA(N) (1982-1988) and one ofthe foremost maritime strategists produced by the People's Republic ofChina. Born in 1916, Liujoined the PLA in 1930 and was a veteran ofits Long March. His transition from the army to the navy began in 1952, after which he served in a variety of operational and technical assignments including Deputy Commander ofthe North Sea Fleet, Vice Minister of the 6th Ministry of Machine Building (Ship Building), and Deputy Chief of the General Staff, before assuming the position of PLA(N) Commander in August 1982.
In a military dominated by the "great infantry" concept, Liu was much more than just an army officer serving in naval assignments. Instead, Liu proved himself to be a forward thinking maritime strategist who developed the PLA(N)s current strategy of "offshore defense," began the now robust program of naval diplomacy and foreign engagement, and laid the intellectual and technical foundations for the rapidly modernizing PLA(N) oftoday. In the final phase of his military career, Liu served on the Central Military Commission, where he would eventually become the senior vice chairman and one of the most powerful men in the Chinese military behind then-CMC Chairman Deng Xiaoping.
In 1985, the Secretary of Navy equipment and technology unit reported to Admiral Liu Huaqing that naval equipment development 15 years envisaged the need to start the aircraft carrier demonstration. Liu said: "The aircraft is always made to the year 2000, and the Navy always considered the development of the aircraft carrier, you can not put on the model, and to engage in preliminary research." In the mid-1980s, the aircraft carrier was considered in order to deal with the South China Sea issue and the long-term strategic development of the future navy.
In 1988, the National Defense Science and Technology Industry Committee and the Seventh Insitute led the organization of China's aircraft carrier project demonstration. The demonstration of the topic "China's development of aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft". In January 1989 the project was given the formal code-named "891 Project" [ie 1989, 1st month]. This established the principle to rely on China's own capacity, self-reliance development of a medium-sized aircraft carrier.
The development of the aircraft carrier become one of the top ten Chinese military research projects in the "Eighth Five-Year Plan". "891" aircraft carrier project to establish the principle of self-reliance in the development of a medium-sized aircraft carrier.
The Chinese aircraft carrier planned by the project was a medium-sized aircraft carrier with steam power and steam catapult, independently developed for the Chinese aircraft carrier. The relevant research projects had been carried out, such as the overall structure of the aircraft carrier, the combat system, the steam catapult, arresting devices and Fresnel lens, and so on to all aspects of aircraft carrier technology research.
The ship island of Project 891 uses a tilted chimney similar to that of the USS Kennedy (Figure 6), but does not use the forward-overhead aviation bridge of the USS Kennedy and the USS America, but adopts the same structure as the Forrest class, Kitty Hawk and Constellation have a similar structure to the rear extended aviation bridge. The rear-mounted (including extended) aviation bridge is also a design adopted by the Soviet large-deck aircraft carriers and their derivatives (such as the Kuznetsov-class, Shandong) and Japanese helicopter carriers (such as Hyuga and Izumo). However, since the Constellation, the aviation bridge of the American aircraft carriers has been set at the front of the ship island - the upper level of the navigation bridge (such as the USS Enterprise, USS America, USS Kennedy, Nimitz class). Although the European aircraft carriers It is smaller than the American super aircraft carrier in terms of hull volume and deck area, but it has adopted a forward aviation bridge earlier (such as the French Clemenceau class and the British HMS Ark Royal).
By the late 1980s, when the 891 project was established, the newly built/serviced NATO aircraft carriers had fully popularized the design of the front aviation bridge, while the 891 project still chose the rear aviation bridge, which is quite nostalgic (of course , this is not because the design team did not want to follow the trend. The level of information penetration at that time was completely different from that of today. The design and research team could collect very little external information (including image data), and the delegation led by Mr. Liu only visited Kitty Eagle. USS and Forrest-class aircraft carriers, the only relevant image data they could bring back was the extremely scarce external resources. The design and research team could only use "whatever is available" and based on this. Some limited innovations were made, and finally a Kitty Hawk + Kennedy "hybrid" ship island was created.
In terms of the design of the flight deck and the layout of the catapult, Project 891 is different from the European conventional take-off and landing aircraft carriers. , its deck design is highly similar to that of an American super aircraft carrier. The layout of the two steam catapults is different from the left front + oblique angle of the European medium-sized aircraft carriers (Clemenceau class, Ark Royal, Charles de Gaulle), but the right front + Oblique angle. In terms of operation and dispatch design, it is likely to refer to the take-off operation mode of the American super aircraft. However, judging from the design and operation experience, the left front + oblique angle dual catapult layout of the European aircraft carrier. It is more suitable for the deck operation of medium-sized aircraft carriers. If the 891 project really enters the actual design and development stage, perhaps the front catapult will be changed from the right side of the original plan to the left side. Of course, this is just my conjecture. After all, the 891 project failed in the end. After landing, we can only guess and think about it.
After experiencing two ski-jump + conventional take-off and landing aircraft carriers, the CN design team finally gave up the original rear aviation bridge design and built the Fujian ship. A front-mounted extended aircraft bridge is designed. This large-sized extended structure is difficult to find even among American super aircraft carriers, but it is quite similar to the Ark Royal that abandoned the rear-mounted aircraft carrier. This is not just a trend, but a necessary improvement based on the various operational experiences accumulated in the past 10 years. From a structural point of view, the Fujian ship has an extended aviation bridge. The bridge also has a hint of tribute from the Ark Royal.
The established principle is to rely on China's own capabilities and self-reliance to develop a medium-sized aircraft carrier. It is planned to build a standard displacement of 50,000 tons and a nuclear power of 160,000 tons. Horsepower or conventional power of 200,000 horsepower, 2 to 3 steam catapults, equipped with a new generation of carrier-based aircraft and fixed-wing early warning aircraft. Based on this, research on related topics has been carried out, such as the overall structure of the aircraft carrier, combat systems, steam catapults, arresting devices and Fresnel lenses, etc., which involve technical research on all aspects of the aircraft carrier.
As a new aircraft carrier that China wanted to build on its own strength, the 891 aircraft carrier is still quite domestically produced in terms of technology acquisition. For example, the hull structure design benefited from the cooperation between China and Europe in military exchanges in the 1980s, which brought China into contact with many Western countries. At this time, the "Eagle" class conventionally powered ejection aircraft carrier currently in service in the British Navy happened to become the main direction of China's military exchanges. This is also the reason why the 891 aircraft carrier had the same full load displacement of 50,000 tons as the Eagle class.
At the same time, the core steam catapult technology has benefited from the rapid development of my country's shipbuilding industry after the reform and opening up. While my country's design and research and development capabilities for new ships continue to grow, its strength in the dismantling of large ships is also constantly improving. At the same time, The steam catapult technology carried by the Australian Navy's retired third-hand aircraft carrier Melbourne became a key magic weapon for China to acquire steam catapult technology while dismantling it.
After the hull problem is solved, the only remaining question is what kind of carrier-based aircraft will be matched? The British "Eagle" class aircraft carrier of the same level initially carried Sea Vixen carrier-based attack aircraft, and later replaced it with the more advanced F-4 Phantom carrier-based aircraft. Due to the international situation at that time, it was impossible for China to obtain attack aircraft from the outside. After obtaining information on these two carrier-based aircraft, China can only take the road of internal research. At this time, the domestic fighters currently in service mainly include the J-7 and J-8II fighters, as well as the J-10 and J-13 that are still under development. It took many years to get to know the basics of the two models, and all that needed to be done was to test the ship structure and other modifications.
The J-7 fighter is the domestic version of the MiG-21, while the J-8 is the dual-engine version of the J-7 fighter. The entire fuselage of the MiG-21 fighter is designed to facilitate engine maintenance. The front and rear parts are divided into two parts. When replacing the engine, you can simply remove the rear half. If you want to go to the sea on the J-7, it is necessary to install an arresting hook on the belly of the tail of the fuselage, but this position happens to be in the discord. The main structure of the fuselage is an integrated rear fuselage. If the fuselage structure is not redesigned, when the arresting hook directly hooks the arresting cable, the fuselage will be split into two.
Although the twin-engine version of the J-8II fighter derived from the J-7 fighter is no longer split into two, it is not much better. The J-8II still has poor low-altitude and low-speed performance. The wing area must be increased, and the height of the single vertical tail must be changed to double vertical tails if it is too high. This involves strengthening the fuselage structure, aerodynamic modifications, etc. The overall workload is no less than redesigning a brand new carrier-based aircraft. , and even if the J-7 and J-8II fighters are redesigned, they still have the problem of being born backward.
Demonstration projects included the controversial selection of carrier aircraft. At the time the aircraft available were the selected models of the F-6, the F-7 and J-8, with the final selection of the F-7 aircraft prototype. The Navy selected the ten pilots in the autumn of 1987 to go to Guangzhou Naval Naval Academy for special "flight captain class" learning, training and reserve personnel in advance.
In the later stage, the carrier-based aircraft were locked on the J-10 and J-13 fighter fuselages under development. Although Shenfei's J-13 fighter is very good on paper, as a heavily upgraded version of the J-12 "Air Li Xiangyang", If the J-13 fighter was only placed in that era and compared to the J-7 fighter, it would indeed be very advanced. However, looking at the international situation, the J-13 fighter cannot be regarded as a third-generation fighter in the true sense, which means that it was born into a backward situation. It was determined the actual survival time of the J-13 fighter from the beginning of development to the later discontinuation is not long. Especially for Shenfei, which wants to develop it into a carrier-based aircraft, the J-13 itself had the same problems as the J-7 fighter. The biggest problem is that it is not advanced enough overall, especially when compared with other international fighters, its advantages are not very obvious.
On the other hand, the J-10 fighter begain flying at the same time. Although the J-10 fighter only completed its first flight at the end of 1998, earlier when the National Defense Working Committee brought Chengdu to the carrier-based aircraft selection team, Chengdu was in order to get it. For the carrier-based aircraft market, not only have all the shortcomings of the J-10 been improved and redesigned, such as changing the single-engine large thruster to dual-engine medium thrust, and also changing the abdominal air inlet to a two-rib air inlet , and also launched my country's first quasi-stealth design fighter on the J-10J. It can be said that Chengdu Aircraft's J-10J had an advantage over Shenyang's J-13 in terms of both overall and details.
Then for some reason, the project failed to continue. China actually had the theoretical ability to build this aircraft carrier at that time, but in order to meet the needs of The "891 aircraft carrier project" had to be discontinued due to the development direction of "all development centered on the economy". At that time the country's policy was that military construction was subordinated to economic construction. So limits on the development of the military projects was extremely strong, therefore, funds allocated to the development was extremely limited, all only 40 million yuan, funding that could only support some fundamental research.
After years of pre-development, the military believed that in all aspects of the conditions were ripe, so in 1995 Liu Huaqing proposed in a formal report to the Politburo on the construction of aircraft carriers. But the development of the aircraft carrier and the central policy at that time were not consistent. The report was rejected, and the "891" aircraft carrier project also died. The 891 was discontinued, firstly because there were too many technical difficulties that took time to overcome, and secondly because of a serious lack of funding. Neither the military services themselves nor higher levels could provide more funding. Therefore, abandoning the aircraft carrier project and instead honestly developing new destroyers and frigates can improve naval combat capabilities quickly and with high quality, ensuring that all funds can be used "on the cutting edge."
Both the 891 aircraft carrier that many people have never heard of, and the final outcome of the short-lived J-10J carrier-based aircraft, had to be discontinued in 1995 due to the adjustment of national policies centered on economic construction. But looking back at the past, there are regrets on both the 891 aircraft carrier and the J-10J carrier-based airframe. For example, the technology of the 891 aircraft carrier was mature at the time, and even a ship-based early warning aircraft had a plan, but it could not start construction. In the end, it was only one step away from success. In the following years, the name of e "aircraft carrier" became an extremely sensitive words, not allowed to be mentioned.
From 1995 to 2003 for a full eight years, the development of China's aircraft carrier was a completely blank period, the relevant research work had all stopped, and pre-research results were sealed. However, the Chinese military and Chinese fleet did not give up the aircraft carrier dream. After three years, the "891 Project" was discontinued, which meant that for a considerable period of time proposal of the aircraft carrier was impossible.
In the years since, the name of the aircraft carrier has become an extremely sensitive vocabulary, no longer be mentioned. From 1995 to 2003 for a full eight years, China's aircraft carrier development is a blank period, the relevant research work completely stopped, the previous research results were sealed. However, the Chinese military did not give up the aircraft carrier dream, instead looking for other ways, then Varyag aircraft carrier has become the focus of the Chinese military.
They turned to find other ways, and then the Varyag aircraft carrier entered the Chinese military's attention. The military had to take second best, so the line of sight to "Varyag" aircraft carrier they were ready to take a roundabout "curve to save the country" road.
In more than five years time, the "891" studies achieved remarkable results, and laid a solid foundation for later in China's aircraft carrier development project, and played a great role in the development of China's aircraft carrier.
Unfortunately, Project 891 is even more impractical than Project 707, and is almost destined to be impossible to complete. The most direct reason is funding. The country has far underestimated the R&D and manufacturing costs of aircraft carriers, and the pre-research funding provided is not even enough for the J-10. There are many fighter aircraft (500 million yuan was invested in the research and development of the J-10 in 1982, which was 500 million in 1982!). Secondly, many technical problems are difficult to solve, especially for carrier-based aircraft. Even the J-12 that could barely be used on an aircraft carrier at that time No more. The J-6, J-7, and J-8 on hand were not of much use, even with steam ejection support. Project 891 was discontinued in 1995.
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