China's as yet unnamed aircraft carrier will soon begin another round of sea trials before its planned commissioning in August. It has yet to conduct a full range of flight operations and its fixed-wing air component remains largely in the prototype and testing phase. It will be several months, if not years, before it can fulfill many of the key roles attributed to a modern aircraft carrier and will not achieve full operational capability, including a complete fixed-wing and helicopter equipped air wing, nor full integration into fleet operations before 2016-2017.
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