I thought the Ruskies didn't do alot of blue-water CV flight ops. I remember reading somewhere that the last time they tried, they cut it short due to an inordinately high mishap rate.
Like Flash said, the 96 deployment that wa sa training cruise to the Med was the highlight so far of her service that comprised:
initial Mediterranean training cruise in 1996 after being declared operational
followed by two years in Northern Fleet shipyard due to lack of funding for needed major repair work/overhaul
returned to active status with the Northern fleet in late 1998 but stayed in port until mobilized to assist in attempted rescue and subsequent salvage of the submarine Kursk late in 2001
brief time at sea in 2003 for inspection and trials prior to Northern Fleet exercises in the Atlantic in 2004 and 2005
Note: a Su-33 was lost over the side in 2005 exercise, but she hasn't experienced anyhting that hasn't happened to US navy in course of its carrier operations, but you can certainly say they are on a steep learning curve (ie first time they tried to put a Su-33 in hangar bay, they discovered it the opening wasn't tall enough...oops! and their jet blast deflectors can only take 6 seconds in full AB before the water cooling pipes explode as discovered by the famed test pilot Pugachev when he was doing first takeoff developmental work. Kuznetsov uses devices that extend out of the deck and hold the wheels until ready to launch. For some reason, they wouldn't retract so he was stuck in AB expecting to launch (see at 51 second point for novel operation of the "holdback" device). If he retarded power and they did retract, he would be hurtling down deck with insufficent speed to launch and perhaps too fast to stop. The deflector exploded after 8 seconds beyond their "NATOPS" limit of 6 seconds and Pugachev ultimately pulled power and, sure enough, they retracted so he stomped on the breaks and was able to stop before going over the side).
