Coastlines 1/1250 CL-D06N PD-50, Russian floating drydock for large aircraft carriers, C21st
This model is a 1/1250 scale waterline model of PD-50 made by Coastlines Models, CL-06N.
PD-50 was the largest floating drydock in the world when built at Goteborg, Sweden for the USSR in the 1980s. The dock was designed to be able to lift the Kirov-class "battle cruisers" and Kiev-class, STOL aircraft & helicopter carriers out of the water for maintenance. The fitting of deck extensions and high level gates and walkways meant that Kuznetsov-class large aircraft carriers could be lifted from the 1990s and this new model represents the dock in the twenty-first Century.
PD-50 has been moored at the Northern Fleet base outside Murmansk for most of her life. The Dock is now owned by Rosneft but as the only drydock that can hold the largest ships of the navy outside the Black Sea , there is a contract between Rosneft and the Russian Federation to maintain vessels of the Northern Fleet. When the submarine Kursk was salvaged, the wreck was placed in this drydock.
Admiral Kusnetsov was in the dock when the dock sank accidently and one of the cranes fell onto the deck of the large carrier. The dock was raised and the carrier was sent to the Black Sea for repairs to the flight deck.
The dock would have been used to re-fit Admiral Kuznetsov recently so as to allow the large carrier to fly fast jets using the ski-jump to launch the jets and arrester wires were fitted on the angled deck so that aircraft could land on. Kuzetsov went to sea via the English Channel earlier this year to test this. concept but returned to Russia after two jets crashed on take-off.