Jiangnan Shipyard recently released a piece of recruitment ad, announcing that it’s hiring two graduates of “nuclear-powered equipment” major.
As it has been rumored for a period that Jiangnan Shipyard will start building a new-type homemade aircraft carrier; therefore, combing the employment ad, analysts think this time Jiangnan Shipyard is building the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of China, apart from the currently undergoing Type 001A conventionally-powered aircraft carrier.
As a systematic engineer, nuclear power for aircraft carriers would need a large team and years of time, so the two positions of the recruitment should just be a supplement to an existing team.
Chinese military expert and researcher of China’s Navy Equipment Institute Hou Jianjun recently unveiled that China might have made breakthrough in some key technologies for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and although China has no experience in building such aircraft carriers, its long-term strategy may have determined that nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will surely be built, and thus related technologies are certainly being developed.
Hou Jianjun also pointed out that time is needed for technical breakthrough for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and such technologies are far more complicated for those of conventionally-powered aircraft carriers.
Chinese military expert Yin Zhuo said China will surely build medium-sized or larger aircraft carriers, as small size would be meaningless, and too huge size like America’s would be unnecessary.
Russian media reported in August that China had started building its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and it was also unveiled that China had obtained design and manufacturing drawings for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers from Ukraine over ten years ago, which were used for Soviet Union’s only to-be-built nuclear aircraft carrier, which is 324.6 meters long and 39.8 meters wide, with 79,000 tons of full load displacement, and has a structure similar to that of Liaoning Aircraft Carrier.