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China declares first aircraft carrier Liaoning now "combat ready".

16 Nov, 2016 8:54 | 2016

Naval Forces News - China

China declares first aircraft carrier Liaoning now "combat ready"

A few days after welcoming the commander-in-chief of Russian naval forces to his home base, China's sole aircraft carrier Liaoning set sail for a new training mission. During this mission, still ongoing, the Liaoning's political commissar, Senior Captain Li Dongyou, said in an interview with Global Times newspaper that the ship is "constantly prepared to fight against enemies".

Two J-15 fighter jets flying past the flight deck of the PLAN aircraft carrier Liaoning on Nov. 8, 2016.

"As a military force, we are always prepared for war and our combat capacity also needs to be tested by war ... At this moment, we are doing our best to promote our strength and use it to prevent war, and are prepared for actual combat at any time," Li said.

CCTV-7 video

The Chinese Navy (PLAN) released several pictures of this training mission, and CCTV-7 published a video, focusing on the Liaoning propulsion system, a rarely covered topic.

When the ex-Varyag was sold to China, propulsion systems were the few parts of the ship that remained in a proper state. The Chinese engineers then analyzed all the systems and implemented more than 1,000 modifications in order to improve the stability, the reliability and the overall performance of the propulsion.

One of the major changes applied was to reduce the pressure in the boiler pipes, in order to prevent boilers from operating systematically in over-drive mode when the vessel exceeds 18 knots, a problem that was present on its sistership, the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

HQ-10 missile launch from PLAN aircraft carrier Liaoning

H/PJ-11 CIWS in action aboard PLAN aircraft carrier Liaoning

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China declares first aircraft carrier Liaoning now "combat ready".