Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya Passes Final Trials

Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (formerly known as Admiral Gorshkov) has completed all its trials and is set to join the Indian Navy on November 15.

The crew on Tuesday completed the last tests of the “new” warship, including the flight tests of its combat planes, helicopters and flight deck systems components, reports the GlobalPost.

The trials that were held in the White Sea and the Barents Sea included testing of Electronic Warfare Systems, Aircraft Maintenance Equipment on board, Gauging of Electric Fields and, the most important of all, the trials of Main Propulsion Plant.

Last year, the aircraft carrier was subjected to extensive trials for the first time. While a substantial scope of the ship’s equipment and aviation trials were completed by Sevmash shipyard during this period, the main propulsion plant trials to full power could not be completed due to defects encountered on boiler section. It was a major setback as the delivery of the ship was pushed by a year.

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.

The 284 metre-long and 60-metre-high 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. When delivered, the INS Vikramaditya will be a 90-per cent new ship and will remain in service for 40 years.

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Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, September 18, 2013