Ulyanovsk (Russian: Улья́новск|p=ʊˈlʲjanəfsk), Soviet designation Project 1143.7, was a fixed-wing aircraft carrier laid down on 25 November 1988 as the first of a class of Soviet nuclear-powered supercarriers. It was intended for the first time to offer true blue water naval aviation capability for the Soviet Navy. The ship would have been equipped with steam catapults that could launch fully loaded aircraft, representing a major advance over the, which could only launch less-loaded aircraft from their ski-jumps. However, construction of Ulyanovsk was stopped at about 40% after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[1]
The Soviet Union's Nevsky Engineering Design Bureau developed the third-generation heavy aircraft cruiser Kuznetsov with Su-33 in the 1980s (Plan 1143.5/Order 105) and the Varyag aircraft carrier (Plan 1143.6/Order 106), at the same time, in December 1984, the construction of the fourth-generation large-scale nuclear-powered heavy aircraft cruiser began. The plan number was "Plan 1143.7", and the preliminary design was completed in 1986. On November 25, 1988, construction for "Order 107" ― named Ulyanovsk ― officially began at the Black Sea Shipyard.
To this end, the Soviet government allocated funds to carry out the second large-scale technical transformation of the Black Sea Shipyard, including:
Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the amount of funding to complete the carrier was insufficient, and the aircraft carrier construction plan was suspended. As of November 1991, Ulyanovsk was only 40% complete.
The No. 2 ship "Plan 1143.8" originally planned to be built was also cancelled at the same time.
Ulyanovsk was based upon the 1975 Project 1153 Orel, which did not get beyond blueprints. The initial commissioned name was to be Kremlin, but was later given the name Ulyanovsk[2] 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 tonnes in displacement (larger than the older carriers but smaller than contemporary of the U.S. Navy). Ulyanovsk would have been able to launch the full range of fixed-wing carrier aircraft, as it was equipped with two catapults as well as 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 40% complete in January 1991 and a planned second unit was never laid down.
In accordance with Decree No. 69-R of February 4, 1992, signed by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Kostyantyn Masyk, on February 5, 1992, scrapping of the ship's hull structures began. By October 29, 1992, the slipway was free, and the ship (order 107) had ceased to exist.
The Ulyanovsk air group was to include 68 aircraft with the following planned composition:
The ship was equipped with two "Mayak" steam catapults made by the Proletarian Factory in Leningrad, a ski-jump, and four arresting gear. For storing 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.