China’s New Aircraft Carrier Looks Powerful – But It Has A Major Problem

On paper, China’s newest aircraft carrier looks great. Fujian entered service on 5 November 2025, becoming the third and most powerful ship added to China’s carrier fleet. Its introduction saw it crowned as the world’s largest non-nuclear warship. This should be of particular importance for those building China’s first domestically designed aircraft carrier.

Although its conventional power is a disadvantage compared to American aircraft carriers like the Gerald R. Ford, the rest of the ship looks like a pretty serious upgrade in terms of China’s naval capabilities. For example, other than the aforementioned Gerald R. Ford, Fujian is the only carrier in the world with electromagnetic catapults.

In theory, this system allows the carrier to launch heavier aircraft with greater fuel and weapons payloads; These are features that will greatly increase the carrier’s potential reach and operational flexibility. But scratch just below the surface and Beijing’s latest carrier appears to have at least one serious flaw.

The nature of the problem became apparent after military analysts questioned the efficiency of the ship’s flight deck layout. Technical evaluations of this design feature appear to point to a layout that could potentially create launch and recovery bottlenecks during combat operations.

This is critical because the defect causes limitations in the field that ultimately determine an aircraft carrier’s combat value (how quickly it can launch and recover aircraft).

Read more: The World’s 10 Largest Navies Ranked by Total Naval Assets, According to Self-Reports

Flight deck layout problem

Modern aircraft carriers are far from the first aircraft carriers that appeared immediately after the advent of aviation. However, regardless of the lineage of the bearer, one trait has been critical throughout the history of the breed; how quickly he could launch and recover the plane. This tempo is called sortie generation and depends largely on flight deck geometry, equipment, and carefully choreographed flight deck sequence.

we already I know a lot about China’s newest aircraft carrierBut cracks are appearing in its strong façade. In interviews with CNN, former U.S. Navy captain Carl Schuster and retired Lt. Cmdr. Keith Stewart noted aspects of Fujian’s deck configuration that could have limited the extent to which she could generate sorties.

After reviewing images of the carrier, they noticed that the angled landing area crossed the deck at a narrower angle than on US aircraft carriers, reducing the space between the rescue strip and forward catapults. One of these catapults also appears to have intruded into the landing area, meaning it could not be used during the carrier’s recovery of the aircraft.

“Fujian’s operational capability is only 60% of the Nimitz class,” Schuster told CNN. he said. Essentially, it appears that the carrier will not be able to launch and recover the aircraft simultaneously, which is considered a prerequisite for carriers of this size.

In a documentary broadcast on Chinese television, the ship’s flaws were also drawn to attention. On the broadcast, a crew member described how the landing plane passed two of the launch catapults before stopping in the maintenance area.

A step towards something bigger

This problem does not render Fujian ineffective; The carrier still represents a significant leap forward for the Chinese navy. The inclusion of an electromagnetic catapult system alone expands the types of aircraft it can launch and the payloads it can carry. As noted, the Gerald R. Ford is the only other operational ship with such a system. Although John F. Kennedy has just completed a major milestone toward commissioning, he will soon join this exclusive club.

However, propulsion systems remain a defining difference and have played a role beyond just how ships are powered. How long can aircraft carriers stay at sea without refueling?. Fujian’s conventional power system is believed to have contributed to design constraints regarding elevators, island and support areas below the flight deck. By comparison, nuclear propulsion provides more interior volume and gives designers more leeway when considering deck layouts and aircraft manipulation.

Analysts therefore now expect China’s next carrier, often referred to as the Type 004, to be China’s first nuclear-powered submarine and to incorporate the lessons learned from Fujian’s plan.

For now, despite its undoubtedly powerful appearance, the Fujian looks more like a transitional design than a completed object. It’s a design that enables China to transition away from ski jump carriers to a future that has the potential to join the United States and France as the only countries operating nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

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Read Original article on SlashGear.