I usually like warisboring, but they've gone off the deep end lately on Russia.<p>If they weren't so busy hyperventilating, they'd notice the obvious fact that this is a Mig-29/35 training mission. The Mig-35 evolution on the '29 is being rolled out, and the Miyokan design bureau is in something of a bind, as they haven't have been as successful as Sukhoi. So, this is an opportunity for Miyokan to show off some of its unique capabilities.<p>These gizmos can be (have been) sold to China and India for their own aircraft carrier ambitions.
This ship, in huge seas, under tow.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33DyawPG-hw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33DyawPG-hw</a><p>Some deck footage of some rather sad flight operations. (skip to 15:00)<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtyHKR6saI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtyHKR6saI</a><p>Previous article for perspective:<p><a href="https://warisboring.com/your-aircraft-carrier-is-a-piece-of-crap-f3f52d299588" rel="nofollow">https://warisboring.com/your-aircraft-carrier-is-a-piece-of-...</a>
<i>"Since the USSR and Russia has had little opportunity to build these skills, and none to test them in combat, any strike missions from the Kuznetsov would be limited and mostly for show."</i><p>This fact impacted the Sino carrier program [0] so much that it the Sino scrapping of the RAN, HMAS Melbourne (R21) [1] in 1980, was delayed to <i>study</i> the steam catapult system. It was launched as a Majestic Class in 1943 and retro-fitted to launch the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.<p>Uncle served on the Melbourne and I got to take a look around the Melbourne just before RIMPAC78. Two years later it was scrapped. and towed off to China.<p>Reference<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Chinese_aircraft_carrier#ex-HMAS_Melbourne" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Chinese_aircraft_carrie...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_(R21)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_(R21)</a>
<i>> Admiral Kuznetsov has never seen combat, nor would she be of much practical military use.</i><p>As a Russian speaker, I find this sentence grating. Is it normal to refer to a ship with a male name as "she"? Would this be right?<p><i>> USS George Washington has never seen combat, nor would she be of much practical military use.</i><p>(For those that don't know, Russian last names are slightly different depending on the gender. So Admiral Kuznetsov's wife's last name would be Kuznetsova.)
It's odd to me, why didn't Russia/the USSR develop nuclear aircraft carriers? The USSR ran out of money before they could be developed perhaps?