Pictures Show China's Soviet-Built Aircraft Carrier on the Move

New pictures showing China's Soviet-built aircraft carrier Liaoning leaving a shipyard for sea trials in the Yellow Sea have emerged.

The aircraft carrier is conducting sea trials in the Yellow Sea from February 29 to March 6, the Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po reported on Thursday. After a year of maintenance and upgrading, China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, departed from the Dalian Shipyard pier at noon on Thursday with the assistance of tugboats and started its sea trial mission.

Originally built by the Soviet Navy, a Chinese travel agency purchased the unfinished hull in 1998 and the ship was towed from Ukraine to China three years later. It underwent years of refitting and was officially commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy in 2012.

The new images, published by Wen Wei Po, show a full-size model of China's advanced J-35 fighter jet parked on the deck of the carrier wrapped in a tarpaulin, as well as a model of a J-15 fighter.

The images, which initially surfaced on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo last week, have captured the attention of military analysts and enthusiasts worldwide.

The Liaoning underwent a year of repair and refurbishment at the Dalian Shipyard, where it had been since February 28, 2023, Chinese state media outlet Global Times reported.

The carrier departed the shipyard equipped with mock-ups of both the Annihilator-35 (J-35) and Annihilator-15 (J-15) on its deck, signaling a new era in China's naval aviation capabilities, Wen Wei Po reported.

Experts believe a successful deployment of the J-35 on the Liaoning could herald its use on China's other aircraft carriers, the Shandong and the Fujian.

"One most straightforward assessment is that the Liaoning, which has long been designated as a test bed for PLA carrier capabilities, is conducting experiments on the J-35 as a viable carrier-borne fighter jet," Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told Hong Kong newspaper the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on February 23.

Koh added that the dummy could also be for "signaling purposes," the SCMP reported.

The J-35, which is being developed by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, represents China's second foray into fifth-generation fighter technology, following the J-20. The aircraft is specifically designed for carrier operations and is currently in the developmental and prototype phase, the SCMP reported. It's often heralded as China's answer to the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet produced by Lockheed Martin.

The appearance of a scale-model of the J-35 at the Zhuhai Airshow in 2012 marked the project's public debut. Observers note that the recent imagery suggests the jet could soon reach operational status.

"If the deployment test on Liaoning is successful…the same deployment will be implemented on the Shandong and Fujian ships as soon as possible," Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel, told the SCMP.

Upon its induction, the J-35 is expected to complement the fourth-generation J-15 fighters already deployed on the Liaoning and the Shandong, China's second carrier.