Russian Southern Fleet in Mediterranean Sea

[kham]

Video here including some footage of flight operations and recoveries.

For all the pain over the smoking, there nothing wrong with their technique here at all.
Although I'd bet money they wish they had real Cats and a bigger deck to work

[Grendel]

Carrier flight ops has a very steep learning curve, as the Chinese are finding out as well. The same would apply to catapults. Steam? That's some specialized equipment. And even now the US Navy is having some teething problems with EMALS.

[kham]

That's about as diplomatic a way possible as putting it...
Ford is looking right now, like LCS, and DDG-1000; way too many "transformational" systems at once.
The damn Cats don't work properly. And neither does the Arrestor Gear. Or the Radar. Or the power systems.....
The first two are sorta big deals. Since the whole point of that thing on the roof called the "flight deck"? Is to launch and recover airplanes. If you CAN'T do that, then you may as well get a couple acres of sod, and get going on a frakking golf course
Yeah
Big Deal