Shandong hits 10,000
Chinese state media has been puffing out the fact that the PLAN’s new flattop, Shandong (17), has achieved a significant milestone, hitting “nearly 10,000 sorties” since her commissioning in December 2019, just over five and a half years ago.
Shandong also recently called at Hong Kong, along with the destroyer Zhanjiang and frigate Yuncheng, to celebrate the anniversary of the handover from British control.
With part of her airwing on deck, the PLAN opened the ship to thousands of carefully screened local visitors, giving a good view of this rare carrier, the pride of the ChiCom fleet. Of note, the last American flattop to be allowed to call at Hong Kong, one of the best libo ports in the world, was USS Ronald Reagan in 2018.
That “nearly 10,000 sorties” claim on Shandong is pretty significant. A figure of about five sorties per day, every day, since joining the fleet.
The 70,000-ton Type 002 STOBAR carrier uses Shenyang J-15 STOVL jets, which take off via a ski jump and are recovered, like her Changhe Z-18 and Harbin Z-9 helicopters, vertically. As she only has a 30-aircraft wing, less than half the amount of aircraft found in a full-strength U.S. Navy CVW, that is a bit over 300 sorties per airframe in 68 months. Of course, we don’t know if the “10,000” figure is both a launch and a recovery or is either a launch or a recovery on its own, but you get the idea.
To compare how many sorties that is, USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) hit her 10,000th arrested landing (trap) on 7 January 1963, which was just 618 days after her commissioning on 29 April 1961. This doesn’t cover cats and launches.
The 11,000-ton Independence-class light carrier USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) flew 11,120 combat sorties (on 309 offensive missions) in 471 days of combat during WWII– with a 30-aircraft airwing!
USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) celebrated her 60,000th arrested landing on 28 April 1966, just shy of her 5th commissioning anniversary. She saw her 10,000th strike mission flown over Vietnam the next day. During 1995, with a smaller airwing than in 1966 and at a time of (relative post-Cold War) peace, Enterprise recorded 6,879 fixed wing aircraft traps, (5,250 day and 1,629 night), together with 760 helo landings, (599 day and 161 night), facilitating over 600 pilot qualifications– and that doesn’t cover the cats and launches.
The 60,000-ton USS Coral Sea (CV-43) saw over 16,000 cats and 10,800 strikes just during her epic 331-day 1965 Vietnam deployment alone.
Even with all of the publicly acknowledged problems with the new EMALS and AAG systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), she marked her 10,000th cat and trap on 25 June 2022, just shy of her fifth birthday, with the vessel in limited post-delivery tests and trials during much of that time.
The Navy has publicly posted that the Nimitz-class has a daily sortie rate of 120 aircraft (240 under 24-hour surge), while the Ford-class has a daily sortie rate of 160 aircraft (270 under 24-hour surge). Meanwhile, the Royal Navy’s smaller STOVL Queen Elizabeth-class carriers are reported to be able to run 72 (surge 115) per day when carrying a full wing of F-35s.
And the beat goes on.