Aircraft Carrier ‘INS Vikramaditya’ Finally Delivered

The Indian Navy has taken delivery of the aircraft carrier ‘INS Vikramaditya’ (formerly known as Admiral Gorshkov). Defence Minister Shri AK Antony commissioned the ship at FSUE Sevmash, the state owned shipyard at Severodvinsk, Russia, on 16 Nov 2013.

The contract for modernization of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (renamed into INS Vikramaditya) for the Indian Navy was tied in 2004. It became the largest export contract in Russian-Indian military technical cooperation. Initially, modernization was evaluated as $616 million but the deal amount was revised later to $2.3 billion. The ship was planned to join the Indian Navy in 2008, however, due to increased scope of works, the ship’s delivery date was postponed for late 2013.

INS Vikramaditya has a displacement of 45,000 tons, and an endurance of 13,500 nautical miles (25,000 km) at a cruising speed of 18 knots. It will have an air wing consisting of Russian-made MiG-29K jet fighter planes and Kamov Ka-31 early warning radar helicopters.

A total of 234 new hull sections were fabricated using 2500 tonnes of steel which is almost equivalent to the standard displacement of a mid-size frigate. Repair and re-equipping of Vikramaditya to give her a new lease of life as a full- fledged carrier was probably as demanding task as constructing a similar tonnage ship from the drawing board. The task was enabled by the expertise and experience of the Russian designers and yard workers working hand in glove with Indian experts. The extreme cold weather conditions only made the work environment harder.

At the end of this refit, spanning a little short of a decade, INS Vikramaditya has metamorphosed into a fully capable and potent platform. Once integrated, the ship will bring transformational capabilities to the Indian Navy and will be a ‘game changer’.

[mappress]
Source: indiannavy, November 18, 2013