Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning

Liaoning (CV-16)

Liaoning, handover in Dalian, September 2012
History
→ Soviet Union → Ukraine
Name:	Riga→Varyag
Namesake:	Imperial Russian cruiser Varyag
Ordered:	1983
Builder:	Mykolaiv South Nevskoye Planning and Design Bureau
Laid down:	December 6, 1985
Launched:	December 4, 1988
Completed:	Abandoned (68% complete)
Fate:	Sold to the Chinese Navy
People's Republic of China
Name:	Liaoning (Chinese: 辽宁舰)
Namesake:	Liaoning Province
Builder:	Dalian Shipbuilding Industry
Completed:	2011
Commissioned:	September 25, 2012
Status:	In active service
Badge:
General characteristics for Varyag as originally designed
Class and type:	Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:	43,000-tonnes, light 53,000 – 55,200-tonnes, standard 58,600 – 67,500-tonnes, max
Length:	304.5 m (999 ft) o/a 270 m (890 ft) w/l
Beam:	75 m (246 ft) o/a 35 m (115 ft) w/l
Draft:	8.97 m (29.4 ft)
Installed power:	Steam
Propulsion:	Steam turbines, 8 boilers, 4 shafts, 200,000 hp (150 MW) 4 × 50,000 hp (37 MW) turbines 9 × 2,011 hp (1,500 kW) turbogenerators 6 × 2,011 hp (1,500 kW) diesel generators 4 × fixed pitch propellers
Speed:	32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Range:	3,850 nautical miles (7,130 km; 4,430 mi) at 32 knots
Endurance:	45 days
Complement:	1,960 crew 626 air group 40 flag staff 3,857 rooms
General characteristics for Liaoning after refit
Class and type:	Type 001
Armament:	3 × Type 1130 CIWS 3 × HQ-10 (18 Cell Missile system)
Aircraft carried:	24 Shenyang J-15 6 Changhe Z-18 4 Changhe Z-18J 2 Harbin Z-9 Total of 36 fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft.

Liaoning (16; Chinese: 辽宁舰; pinyin: Liáoníng Jiàn) is the first aircraft carrier commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force. It is classified as a training ship, intended to allow the Navy to practice with carrier usage.

Originally laid down as the Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole aircraft carrier Riga for the Soviet Navy, she was launched on December 4, 1988, and renamed Varyag in 1990. The stripped hulk was purchased in 1998 by the People's Republic of China and towed to Dalian shipyard in northeast China. After being completely rebuilt and undergoing sea trials, the ship was commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as Liaoning with the class name Type 001 on September 25, 2012. In November 2016, the political commissar of Liaoning, Senior Captain Li Dongyou, stated that Liaoning was combat ready.

Often referred to as an aircraft carrier, the vessel was officially classified by her Soviet builders as "тяжёлый авианесущий крейсер" tyazholiy avianesushchiy kreyser (TAKR or TAVKR) "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser." The Soviet Union argued that the ships were not aircraft carriers under the Montreux Convention and not subject to the 15,000 ton limit imposed on aircraft carriers traveling through the Bosphorus. No signatory to the Montreux Convention objected to their designation as aircraft cruisers, and Turkey allowed the Kuznetsov class to transit the Straits.

The Chinese Navy considers the ship to be an aircraft carrier and unlike the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which carries surface-attack cruise missiles usually found on cruisers, Liaoning is equipped only with air defense weapons and must use its aircraft for surface attack.