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Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier
Russian and Chinese ship class / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrying cruiser (Russian: Авиано́сцы ти́па «Кузнецо́в» Avianо́stsii Tipa "Kuznetsо́v"), Soviet designation Project 1143.5, is a class of STOBAR aircraft carriers operated by the Russian and Chinese navies. Originally designed for the Soviet Navy, the Kuznetsov-class ships use a ski-jump for launching high-performance jet aircraft and arrestor gears for landing. The design represented a major advance in Soviet fleet aviation over the Kiev-class carriers, which do not have full-length flight deck and could only launch VSTOL aircraft. The Soviet Union's classification for the class was as a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser, which permits the ships to transit the Turkish Straits without violating the Montreux Convention.[5] However, the Chinese variants are classified as aircraft carriers.
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![]() Admiral Kuznetsov in 2017 | |
Class overview | |
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Name | Kuznetsov class |
Builders | |
Operators | |
Preceded by | Kiev class |
Succeeded by |
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Subclasses | |
Built | 1982–2019 |
In commission | 25 December 1990–present |
Completed | 3 |
Active | 2 (Chinese PLA Navy) (+1 inactive Russian Navy vessel undergoing refit) |
General characteristics | |
Type | Aircraft cruiser/Aircraft carrier |
Displacement | |
Length | 305 m (1,000 ft 8 in) |
Beam | 72 m (236 ft 3 in) |
Draught | 11 m (36 ft 1 in) |
Propulsion | |
Speed | 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph) |
Range |
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Complement | 1,500 |
Armament |
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Aircraft carried |
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Aviation facilities |
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Because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the three Kuznetsov-class ships were built over a protracted construction period of almost four decades. Two ships were originally laid down at the Nikolayev South Shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR, to be followed by the first of the Ulyanovsk-class nuclear-powered supercarriers. Only the lead ship Admiral Kuznetsov had been commissioned when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the ship now serves in the Russian Navy. Construction of her sister ship Varyag was abandoned until 1998, when an independent Ukraine sold the uncompleted ship to China for use as a floating casino, along with a complete set of design blueprints. After a protracted towed journey through three different oceans, Varyag arrived at the Dalian Shipyard and was eventually completed and commissioned in 2012 as China's first aircraft carrier, the Type 001 aircraft carrier Liaoning. China subsequently constructed a third ship to a modified Type 002 design, commissioning Shandong in 2019.