India’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant began its third set of sea trials from January 9. The first voyage taken by INS Vikrant lasted for 5 days in August 2021 followed by a successful 10-day sea trial in October of the same year.
INS Vikrant is a 44000-tonne aircraft carrier built by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and cost around ₹23000 crores. It will be India’s second operational aircraft carrier after INS Vikramaditya. Navy spokesperson Commander Vivek Madhwal, in a PTI report quoted by Economic Times (ET), said that “The IAC now sails to undertake complex manoeuvres to establish specific readings of how the ship performs in various conditions.” The Navy spokesman further said that the third set of trials come in the wake of recent visits by the country’s President and Vice President who conveyed their best wishes to all the officials involved in the project.
The maiden voyage was undertaken by the carrier to test the “performance of key systems (such as propulsion and navigation) of the warship” which were found to be satisfactory, another report by PTI quoted by The Hindu noted. The second trial was undertaken to test the carrier’s crucial machinery and its flight compatibility. “Various seamanship evolutions were also successfully cleared during the second sortie,'' the Navy official further said in the PTI report quoted by ET.
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Several scientists, engineers and other officials from DRDO’s Visakhapatnam-based Naval Science and Technological Laboratory witnessed the beginning of the trials. “The warship will operate MiG-29K fighter jets, Kamov-31 helicopters, and MH-60R multi-role helicopters. It has over 2,300 compartments, designed for a crew of around 1700 people, including specialised cabins to accommodate women officers… The carrier is armed with the Barak LR-SAM (long range surface-to-air missile) air defence and AK-630 close-in weapon system besides a slew of advanced sensors and an electronic warfare suite,” as per PTI reports quoted by The Hindu.
India sees the development of its naval capabilities as a crucial impetus to its desired role of a net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). India sees the Indian Ocean as its backyard and seeks to establish a firm footing in the region for the purpose of securing the crucial Sea Lines of Communication (SLoC) on which the global trade flows.
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In 1999, the then Defence Minister George Fernandes authorised the development of project INS Vikrant. The project was granted a formal green light in January 2003. It employs indigenously built DRDO’s Shakti Electronic Warfare suite and can carry 36-40 combat aircrafts. INS Vikrant is named after India’s first ever aircraft carrier which played a crucial role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. The name is both a tribute to the carrier and its personnel’s heroics in the war as well as an indication of Indian forces’ courage, valour and aspiration that the carrier encapsulates. INS Vikrant is expected to be inducted by August this year. Recently, it was reported that the Indian Navy had begun testing Rafale-M at INS Hansa in Goa to observe its operational compatibility with INS Vikrant.
