Sunday, December 7, 2008

New Varyag photos

So this week, we saw some new photos of Varyag coming out. The photo is kind of interesting because it looks like they opened up the missile section (where the shipwreck missiles would be) to fit equipments in there. We are not sure exactly what. One of the major possibilities would be engines for Varyag. The parts for the engines could be lowered to the hangar deck through the missile opening and/or the hangar elevator. They can then cut an opening in the hangar deck to lower and assemble the engines inside the boiler rooms. After what seemed to be a couple of years of hibernation, work for Varyag has started again. Here are some of the photos of the work done for the ship.


3 comments:

Jiang said...

Feng, I just heard that we will buy 14 Su-33. I think they are for training navy pilots only and Varyag will eventually become a traing carrier with decent strike capability.

duskylim said...

Dear Feng:

In the picture there are 2 areas that are circled red. The 1st appears to be the aircraft lift to the hanger deck. The 2nd is much more difficult to make out, is this the area for missile storage?

I have some experience with ships myself (albeit mainly cargo vessels and diesel engines) but the 2nd opening is generally not large enough to allow an engine to pass through.

Warships have much larger and more powerful engines than merchant vessels, and thus these are much, much larger.

Generally in modern shipbuilding and construction (post WWII), the ship is built in sections, and the engines are pre-installed in the designed section, which are then welded together.

Previously, (the old way we used to do it) the keel was laid, and the hull structure built-up, the engine being installed sometime during this process before the superstructure is built over it.

What I am saying is that the time for engine installation is long past, this should have been done well before what has already taken place.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim

Feng said...

yes, you are right on both front in terms of the circles. Not sure what they are planning to do, we will see in following month.