Homegrown Behemoth

Prasun K. Sengupta

Following a 71-month construction-plus-sea-trial effort, the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) commissioned its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, the Shandong CV-17, at the South China Fleet’s Yulin Naval Base, on China’s Hainan Island, five years after the PLAN’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning CV-16 (whose hull had been built in Ukraine in the late Eighties) was commissioned (on 25 September 2012). The Shandong has a length of 315 metres, width of 75 metres, draught of 9 metres, and cruising speed of 31 Knots. It is also credited with a standard displacement of 70,000 tonnes and a full displacement of 82,000 tonnes.

PLAN’s Type-003 aircraft carrier design

Both the Shandong and Lia