A dream sparked by Top Gun

Like many aviation fans, I love Top Gun, the legendary 1986 action movie that starred Tom Cruise and the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet. The movie implanted the idea in me that being a fighter pilot on an aircraft carrier is one of the coolest and riskiest jobs in the world.

Impressed by the film, I started learning about aircraft carriers. I wished that my country could have at least one such ship and that pilots of the People's Liberation Army Navy could fly advanced planes to patrol the oceans.

However, when I first watched the movie, about 16 years ago, the PLA Navy only had a few small, antiquated destroyers and frigates and decades-old submarines. Having an aircraft carrier and a carrier strike group seemed like a pipedream.