Russia: INS Vikramaditya’s Sea Trials Put Off Till June

Sea trials for the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, being overhauled for the Indian navy at the Sevmash shipyard, have been postponed until the beginning of June.

The extensively modernised former Soviet-era carrier Admiral Gorshkov was scheduled to take the sea from the Sevmash shipyard on May 25th. However poor weather forecast will probably delay the ship’s trials.

Shipyard’s sea trials are planned to be conducted in the White and the Barents seas. Aviation systems and ‘aircraft-ship’ complex in general will be tested then. That will take 3.5 months and the trials must be finished no later than Sept 2012. Acceptance trials will be conducted along with sea ones. Then the ship will be dry-docked in floating dock PD-50 and in Nov 2012 the ship will return to Sevmash for maintenance inspection. After elimination of defects revealed during trials, the aircraft carrier will be handed over to Indian Navy early in Dec 2012.

The contract for modernization of aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Gorshkov (renamed into INS Vikramaditya) for Indian Navy was tied in 2004. It became the largest export contract in Russian-Indian military technical cooperation. Initially, modernization was evaluated as $616 mln, and the ship was planned to join Indian Navy in 2008. However, due to increased scope of works, the ship’s delivery date was postponed for 2012.

[mappress]
Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, May 24, 2012