The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) information warfare machine went into overdrive after US Stealth Fighter F-35C had a wharf mishap on January 24 during flight operations on Supercarrier Carl Vinson while patrolling South China Sea. The USS Carl Vinson along with USS Abraham Lincoln and two wharf vessels are involved in freedom of navigation operations with the motive of inhibiting Chinese PLA from attacking Taiwan by taking advantage of US-Russia extremity over Ukraine.
Several judges with so- called think tanks were quoted in the propaganda media as saying that the F-35C accident exposed the prostration of the US service, which has been exhibiting its prowess against China at the cost of the physical and internal health of its colors and high specialized pitfalls. While the airman of the crashed F-35C was recovered safely, the US Navy is involved in risking operation of the covert fighter lest the Chinese reach there first and copy the rearmost war fighting technology.
While the Chinese media may pass acidulous commentary on US aircraft carrier operations, fact is that fighter accidents onboard aircraft carriers are part and parcel of flight operations. The cold data are that US Navy has been operating aircraft carriers for 100 times with some 70-odd carriers serving the nation and another three under construction. Maritime aeronautics is the most complex part of war fighting with the fighter airman having only 500 bases of flight sundeck to land and take off from the aircraft carrier. Piecemeal from handling the aircraft, the airman must factor in the pitch and roll of the megaship piecemeal from breezy winds, rain, and darkness. The US Navy has not only operated these floating islets for periods but has used them successfully to wage war and design power each over the world.
The Chinese service and propaganda media have frequently passed judgements on Indian military prowess without realising that India has been operating aircraft carriers since 1961 and has an amazing record of maritime aeronautics including 1971 blockading of Karachi harbour. Numerous an armchair judges have argued that carrier- grounded aeronautics is prohibitively precious and outdated due to actuality of long distance ballistic dumdums. They recommend that reinforcement- grounded fighters could do the same job as the carrier withmid-air refueling option giving the important- demanded functional range. Still, the Indian Navy plant that the reinforcement- grounded fighter aviators of the Indian Air Force plant themselves disoriented on high swell without land in sight and used as a reference point. The Indian Navy’s sole aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya is presently under conservation with the new aircraft carrier INS Vikrant anticipated to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 75th time of Indian Independence.
While India has formerly decommissioned two of its aircraft carriers, the PLA Navy carrier operation is still to be born. Its first refitted aircraft carrier Liaoning was declared combat ready only in 2016 with first fighter wharf only in 2012. Not much is known about its alternate aircraft carrier Shandong’s fighter functional capability. The construction of third Chinese aircraft carrier Type 003 only began in February 2017 at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai. While the Chinese have successfully copied the Russian Su-33 carrier- grounded aircraft to stand its own J-15 line, the nonmilitary aeronautics can not be copied, and the only option is training the fighter aviators on high swell and pitch-black darkness. Fact is that Chinese nonmilitary aeronautics has at least a decade to go before it starts to acquire long ocean legs. Indeed though China has stationed long range ballistic dumdums on its eastern seacoast to discourage US carriers, the flat-top vessels have remarkable survival capabilities with the strike group defended by nuclear powered submarines with multinational range ballistic dumdums and destroyers armed with long range voyage dumdums. Since the carrier is constantly on the move, it isn’t only delicate to target the vessel and at the same time exposing the fixed bullet spots to a murderous counter. The world may be hovered by an aggressive PLA and ever growing war making magazine of China, but one must remember that the Communist China has only fought a border skirmish with India in 1962 and was taken to task by miniscule Vietnam in 1979. Projecting power on turbulent swell far way from home is a different ball game.