China's only university to train carrier-based fighter pilots makes debut

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Naval Aviation University, China's only educational establishment to train pilots for carrier-based fighters, will start recruiting students among high school graduates nationwide this year, according to Navy Today, the PLA Navy's official magazine.

The official account of Navy Today on WeChat, an instant messaging application, announced on Sunday that the PLA Naval Aviation University would be established after the regrouping of the PLA Naval Aviation Academy and the PLA Naval Aeronautical Engineering Institute in 2017. It was the first time official news about the PLA Naval Aviation University was released.

China conducts taking-off and landing exercises of J-15 fighter jets on the country's first aircraft, the Liaoning on June 19, 2013. /VCG Photo

The PLA Naval Aviation Academy and the PLA Naval Aeronautical Engineering Institute were both founded in 1950, with the former as the only Chinese college to train pilots for carrier-based fighters.

The new PLA Naval Aviation University "will cultivate more and better military talent of the new type" for naval air force and coastal defense force, the report said.

The university will be located in Yantai in east China's Shandong Province with a campus and a training base in Shandong's Qingdao, as well as training bases in Huludao in northeast China's Liaoning Province, Changzhi in north China's Shanxi Province and Qinhuangdao in north China's Hebei Province.

China's second aircraft carrier is transferred from dry dock into the water at a ceremony in Dalian shipyard of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province on April 26, 2017. /Xinhua Photo

China debuted its first domestically built aircraft carrier on April 26, which was the country's second aircraft carrier after the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet Union-made carrier put into commission in the PLA Navy in 2012.