Liaoning Aircraft Carrier

Liaoning is a Chinese Type 001 aircraft carrier. The first aircraft carrier commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force, she is classified as a training ship, intended to allow the Navy to experiment, train and gain familiarity with aircraft carrier operations.

Originally laid down in 1985 for the Soviet Navy as the Kuznetsov-class aircraft cruiser Riga, she was launched on 4 December 1988 and renamed Varyag in 1990. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, construction was halted and the ship was put up for sale by Ukraine. The stripped hulk was purchased in 1998 and towed to the Dalian naval shipyard in northeast China.

The ship was rebuilt and commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as Liaoning on 25 September 2012. Its Chinese ship class designation is Type 001. In November 2016, the political commissar of Liaoning, Commodore Li Dongyou, stated that Liaoning was combat ready.

In August 2018, South China Morning Post reported that Liaoning was berthed at Dalian undergoing its first refit since its commissioning in 2012. The radar above Liaoning’s bridge and the air traffic control at the rear of the island superstructure was noted to have been removed, and scaffolding was also noted around the command centre. On 21 January 2019, Global Times reported that Liaoning had completed maintenance and modifications which lasted more than half a year, and had departed Dalian for a possible sea trial in the north Yellow Sea near Dalian, noting that changes were made to the superstructure.

The Kuznetsov-class ships were originally designated by the Soviet Navy as "тяжёлый авианесущий крейсер" (tyazholiy avianesushchiy kreyser, TAKR or TAVKR), meaning "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser". In addition to aircraft, the ships were designed to carry P-700 Granit anti-ship cruise missiles that also form the main armament of the Kirov-class battlecruisers. This multirole capability allowed the ships to avoid classification as aircraft carriers, thus allowing them to pass through the Turkish Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Under the Montreux Convention, aircraft carriers larger than 15,000 tons are not permitted to pass through the Straits, but there is no displacement limit on other types of capital ship from Black Sea powers. More details