Russian aircraft carrier in the channel

Why was the russian aircraft carrier cruising down the channel belching out black smoke if its nuclear powered?

Beacause it is a steam turbine engined cruiser. The burners need some attention!

see *** Wikipedia ***

Apparently it's a bit old and flaky  (1985) and has to have it's own tug in the support group in case it breaks down.

John

Edited By Journeyman on 22/10/2016 13:21:15

The escorting cruiser is nuclear powered. According to Wikipedia the carrier is powered by steam turbines. The steam is produced by "turbo boilers" (from memory). I can only assume that these are boilers with a pressurised combustion system.

Mind you the smoke is quite impressive!

JA

Built in smoke screen...

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Probably bought-in from Volkswagen

Ok it was stated in the independent today that it was nuclear powered

The wikipedia entry isn't conclusive as to whether its nuclear though is it?

Diesel powered generators

But the main propulsion fuel isn't mentioned

One thing for sure on this side of things the Russians are usually pretty good at making more and cheaper. Perhaps they don't see any need for air craft carriers.

We seem to have come up with an aircraft carrier that wont take the planes if I remember correctly.

John

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The Daily Telegraph says that it has to be accompanied by a break-down tug because the steam turbines and boilers are so unreliable. Wikipedia mentions that it has twice in the past anchored for some time in international waters off Scotland for repairs.

The Telegraph says there are such things as unlucky ships.

JA

Surely all nuclear powered ships and submarines have steam turbines as the reactor only produces heat as in power station.

Obviously exempt from the EU low sulphur burning fuels???

I wonder if anyone remembers Russian trawlers bristling with aerials ? An aircraft carrier probably has them and might be better "camouflage" to use while listening in. What a good excuse for hanging about - me ship is broke.

John

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They aren't as sophisticated as they'd like to project to the public, That's all part of their marketing. Most of the time these things are rusting hulks sat in harbour and can't be used readily. It's set piece theatre designed to frighten.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 22/10/2016 15:56:34

I think I'm more worried by the Royal Navy sailing two large ships, designed to be invisible to radar, through one of the world's busiest shipping lanes with lots of other cross channel vessels cutting across their path.

Steve

A Few years ago the same flotilla of ships passed close to the Drilling Rig I was working on North of Shetland, she looked very impressive but was also showing the tell tale plume of black smoke that you are saying she displayed while passing through the channel. I would have thought the russians would have heard abut oil firing by now.

According to the Times today, the aircraft carrier is over thirty years old, quite ancient for a modern war machine, and is fuelled with oil to power it's steam turbines and burns a very low grade fuel oil hence the accompanying smoke screen. The Cruiser that is escorting it is nuclear fuelled and apparently a much more modern machine, the rest of the convoy are all non-nuclear.

I worked with an ex-Naval Officer who told me this story, swearing he was there when it happened. During a heavily monitored NATO exercise his CO used the ship's helicopter to drop a parcel on to the deck of a Russian 'trawler' that came too close. The parcel contained a block of ice cream and the message "In aid of the Cold War".

I've always wondered if this was true. Military men of all ranks enjoy pulling the legs of gullible civvies.

Dave

A 'trawler' like an electronic porcupine was (maybe still is) parked off Fylingdales and RAF Irton Moor, despite having caught no fish for years. Also, a colleague who worked you may guess where, said that certain Allied electronic equipment is so designed as NOT to leave a trail of bubbles if thrown overboard...

Geoff

A trawler is a bit smaller than the GCHQ building or the one NSA lives in. Maybe they beam it all to somewhere bigger.

Personally I think we here a lot of things about Russia in areas like this that tend to be propaganda. Backwards, hopeless etc but there are is enough facts about that should make people wonder.

John

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They do make nice machine tools though.

Most of them you could air drop on Bosnia from 28,000 feet and still hold two tenths.

John,

If you are close by, you may pick up spurious signals that leak out, or sidelobes from a directional aerial,and which are undetectable from further afield, like the white van parked outside your house, monitoring your tv channels or W-Fi connections, or the phone calls you make on your cordless phone...

Geoff