On September 5th, a Russian Su-33 fighter slid off the deck of the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, and into the water, during training exercises in the north Atlantic. A broken cable was responsible, and the aircraft was lost. This happened right after the Su-33 had landed, and the arresting cable that prevents the aircraft from continuing on off the carrier, failed. The pilot, who had seven years experience with naval aviation, ejected and was picked out of the water five minutes later. The Su-33, one of 22 on the Kuznetsov, went down in 3,700 feet of water. Although the pilot had many years in naval aviation, he had few hours in the Su-33. Operating this aircraft, and the Kusnetsov, is expensive, and only recently has the navy received enough money to put to sea a lot, and operate its aircraft extensively. The only way to develop carrier capability is to keep those ships, and their aircraft, at sea a lot. Even American carriers would lose about one aircraft a year to such accidents.
The Kuznetsov is the first of its class, and the sister ship of the Varyag, which is now owned by China. Russia began building in the Kuznetsov 1980s. Originally, the Kuznetsovss; were conceived of as 90,000 ton, nuclear powered ships, similar to American carriers (complete with steam catapults). Instead, because of the cost, and the complexity of modern (American style) carriers, the Russians were forced to scale back their goals, and ended up with the 55,000 ton (full load ) ships that lacked steam catapults, and used a ski jump flight deck instead. Nuclear power was dropped, but the Kuznetsov class was still a formidable design. It contains 3,800 compartments, and 16 kilometers of internal passageways. The thousand foot long carrier normally carries a dozen Su-33 jet fighters, 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters and two search and rescue helicopters. But the ship can carry up to 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters instead. The ship carries 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load.) Because of the expense, and risk of accidents with an inexperienced crew, the Kuznetsov didnt get to sea much for many years. But the Russians have had enough experience with Kuznetsov to encourage them to get develop plans for two more, larger, carriers. These new ships, which are not expected until the next decade, may look like current carriers, but will probably be quite different inside. For one thing, the Russians will arm the 2010 carriers with more missiles and robotic aircraft (combat UAVs.) Even the Kuznetsov had twelve aircraft size P-500 Shipwreck anti-ship missiles. These were launched from tubes mounted beneath the flight deck.
The Su-33 is roughly equal to the American F-18, and is basically a carrier version of the Su-27.
