Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk

Ulyanovsk (Cyrillic: Улья́новск) was the first of a class of never-completed Soviet nuclear-powered supercarriers which for the first time would have offered true blue water aviation capability for the Soviet Navy. This was based upon the 1975 Project 1153 OREL (which never went beyond blueprints). The initial commissioned name was to be Kremlin, but was later given the name Ulyanovsk after the Soviet town of Ulyanovsk, which was originally named Simbirsk but later renamed after Vladimir Lenin's original name because he was born there.

It would have been 85,000 tons in displacement (larger than the older Forrestal-class carriers but smaller than contemporary Nimitz-class carriers of the U.S. Navy). Ulyanovsk would have been able to carry the full range of fixed-wing carrier aircraft, as opposed to the limited scope in which Admiral Kuznetsov launched aircraft, by way of a ski jump. The configuration would have been very similar to U.S. Navy carriers though with the typical Soviet practice of adding anti-ship missile (ASM) and surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers. Its hull was laid down in 1988, but construction was cancelled at 20% complete in January 1991 and a planned second unit was never laid down. Scrapping began on 4 February 1992 and was completed by the end of October 1992.

The People's Republic of China is expected to build two nuclear aircraft carriers based on the Project 1143.7 Ulyanovsk-class design for some of the PLAN future Chinese aircraft carriers.

Air Group
The "Ulyanovsk" air group was to include 68 aircraft with the following planned composition:


 * 44 fighter aircraft, combination of Sukhoi Su-33 (Su-27K) and Mikoyan MiG-29K fighters
 * 6 Yakovlev Yak-44 RLD Airborne early warning aircraft
 * 16 Kamov Ka-27 Anti-submarine helicopters
 * 2 Ka-27PS Search and rescue helicopters

The ship was equipped with two "Mayak" steam catapults made by the Proletarian factory, a ski-jump, and 4 arresting gear. For storage of aircraft, it had a 175×32×7.9-m hangar deck with aircraft elevated to the flight deck by 3 elevators with carrying capacities of 50 tons (two on the starboard side and one on the port). The stern housed the "Luna" optical landing guidance system.