I agree, there is huge disadvantage to the deck space on Viky on the top deck and below, the island placement and the lone hanger in the middle of the top deck. That being said, the Liaoning has a huge problem, its not deck space or design rather its air wing. Thats a short coming the PLAN has sort out and will seriously reduce combat capability of PLAN CBG. The Viky is almost the same in terms of take off space for fighter space on deck. Its smaller sure, but the launch distance is almost identical. Thats a fact. The Mig-29 does a lot better on short take offs than the Flankers, thats a given. Plus flankers a forced to get a lot heavier to strengthen them for a landing on a carrier. The Russians were quick to jump onto the Mig-29 even though during Soviet times, the Mig-29 was too small to have decent fire power. Also, blast deflectors are not entirely needed if you are not going to work on super carriers. Viky may be able to launch fighters faster than the refurbished Soviet casino. The factor being the RD-33/93 engine performance for interception role.
The Soviet Navy had a competition between the Su33 and the original Mig29K before selecting the more capable flanker. The Russian Navy only purchased the latest iteration of the Mig29K because the Su33 production line had been closed for years and would require a significant investment to re-open. Same goes for funding upgrades. India had already paid for the upgrades to the Mig29K. They simply piggy backed on the Indian Navy order.
Even to this day the Mig 29K hasn't "replaced" the Su33 in Russian Naval Aviation, with a majority of the sorties generated by Kuznetsov during its short Syrian outing produced through its much older Su33 airframes not the Mig 29K.
Vikramaditya has two launch positions with no blast deflectors. The Kuznetsov class has 3. Each launch position on Liaoning has a blast deflector, allowing a follow up aircraft to line up behind the launch position and launch shortly afterwards. Vikramaditya's flight deck crew have to place the second launch aircraft much further away to avoide damage from the launch aircraft's afterburners.
Basically, Liaoning could launch 6 J15's in the time it took Viky to launch 2, MAYBE 4.
She could launch 2 aircraft from both her port and starboard forward launch positions and recover another through the landing area:
Both of Viky's launch positions intrude on her landing strip. The inboard lift cant even be used when the starboard launch position is being used.
Its not rocket science gents. Basic layout dictates that the Kuznetsov class, the successor to the Gorshkov class is designed for higher sortie generation.
Fanboys will just decide that since Viky is Indian, she's superior, but use rational analysis instead of nationalistic nonsense.
I'm not going to argue for you or the other. I will state that we have NO facts about crashes in China. Some make it to the media and can not be hidden but it is a matter of POLICY for PLA not to report and hold AUDITS or have TRANSPERANCY same with Pakistan, which is why Chinese/ Pakistan weapons are not criticized and PLA and PA are forced to work with potentially self harming equipment.
China gets it done, and if its isn't of quality, who is going to complain? Whos going to hear the complaint?
yep. Thats exactly what PLA fanboys work with? Is this not the same logic? What do PLA fanboys do? Watch out for photos that maybe printed by PLA itself to see what kind of technology China as cooked up rather than having offical publications with transparency? You know whats worse than poor reporting? No reporting!
I don't know about "PLA fanboys", but serious Chinese Military watchers base findings on photographic or video evidence. Different batches of J15's produced can be identified by their unique serial numbers. Indian fanboys on this site would have us believe that "secret crashes" have occurred with 0 evidence to back those claims.
China having a communist government is not evidence mate. Who's being irrational again?