China Strives To Obtain Aircraft Carriers

ROC, China- One of the main apparent thrusts by the Government of China is to obtain and utilize a number of Naval Aircraft Carriers. It has been undergoing testing with a number of different systems, including the purchase of a retired former Soviet Union Aircraft Carrier in the late 1990s.

Now, China has been sending personnel to the Ukraine, to the former USSR republic of the Ukraine to receive training on how to become aircraft carrier pilots. This is to prepare their pilots for the battle Aircraft carrier group that it one day plans to have. China has been sending increasingly large numbers of pilots to the Navy Aviation station in the Ukraine, at the training force centers in Sevastopol and Odessa. These pilots from China first began to arrive in October 2006, and have been attending these training facilities ever since.

China wants to build its own version of a former Russian/Soviet jet fighter, the Sukhoi Su-33. It was a fighter that could take off and land on board an aircraft carrier, and it has purchased a single T-10K shipboard jet fight for this purpose. China is taking it apart and using it to design their own variant of a shipboard jet fighter capable of taking off and landing on board an aircraft carrier.

Compared to the United States, even with a single aircraft carrier, the United States currently have 13 Aircraft Carrier battle groups. But it is something to watch, for one of the most powerful Naval forces on earth is the Aircraft Carrier battle group.