India fifth country to build such a carrier.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of developing an indigenous submarine, INS Arihant, the Indian Navy achieved another mile stone as it launched its first-ever indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant from a shipyard at Kochi in Kerala.
This is not to be confused with the earlier aircraft carrier INS Vikrant which has been decommissioned on January 31, 1997. It was bought from the UK way back in 1957. It is now on exhibit at Mumbai’s maritime museum.
India now joins an elite club of nations capable of manufacturing and operating a 40,000 ton carrier as thus far only the United States, Russia, UK and France have the capability of such leviathans. Even China has not been able to develop an aircraft carrier of such magnitude.
Commodore Saibal Sen, who is overseeing the construction of INS Vikrant, said, ‘developing our own warship steel was a technological imperative’. Thus far India had been dependent on countries like Russia, Poland and the UK for war-grade steel but now the Indian public sector company Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has perfected the art and started delivering weapon-grade steel to the Indian Navy.
INS Vikrant has been under development for the past eight years. Its construction started in 2009 and is expected to begin sea trials by next year. The new home made aircraft carrier would be able to protect 1000 square kilometers of radius depending on its deployment.
The aircraft carrier weighing 37, 500 tones would get company when INS Vikramaditya, originally Admiral Gorshkov, joins the Indian waters by year end.
At the launch in Kochi, in Kerala where it was made, Defence Minister AK Anthony said “It is a red-letter day for the entire nation and a proud moment for the country which has achieved self-reliance in the field of warship design and construction. Only a few advanced countries have capability to design and build such aircraft carriers.”
The minister asked all stakeholders including the builder Cochin Shipyards Limited (CSL) to ensure that the aircraft carrier is delivered on time, observing that many years were lost in the past due to “lack of coordination”.
The launch of INS Vikrant, which has a length of 260 meters and a width of 60 meters, is behind schedule by three years. It is set to go for extensive trials in 2016 before being inducted into the Navy by 2018 end.
Besides carrying an arsenal of advanced weapons systems fighter aircraft – Mig-29K, Light Combat Aircraft and Kamov-31 helicopters will be deployed on board the carrier.
Twenty aircraft carriers are currently active throughout the world with the U.S. Navy alone operating half of these as of February 2013. Aircraft carriers help in facilitating quick and precise projections of overwhelming military power into local and regional conflicts. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, who headed the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy from July 2009 to April 2013 and commanded an aircraft carrier on operational patrol off Sierra Leone, had this to say about aircraft carriers, ‘To put it simply, countries that aspire to strategic international influence have aircraft carriers”.