Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

Indian Navy’s carrier fleet and the air arm is all set to get a major boost with the first of the indigenous Vikrant-class aircraft carrier expected to join by 2018 and its follow on a few years later.

As of now, the Western Naval Command (WNC), the sword arm of the Indian Navy has two carriers — INS Vikramaditya and INS Viraat.

The other carrier that Navy used, Vikrant, was decommissioned in 1997 and is being scrapped now – as a plan to convert her into a permanent maritime museum has failed.

“Few countries have carriers. In the world, there are 20 carriers which are currently operational, of which 12 belong to the United States Navy, two each to the United Kingdom and India, one to China, one to Russia,” Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of WNC, said, during an interaction with Mumbai-based mediapersons on board INS Vikramaditya, docked 12 nautical miles off Gateway of India.

Admiral Chopra said that the indigenous carrier is being built at the Cochin Shipyard and she is expected to join the force by 2018 or 2019 – depending on the pace of work. Indian Navy officials said according to current projections, the blue-water force could become a three-carrier force only after 2020.

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HMS Astute said:

One of the old rusty buckets which Royal Navy decommissioned since 2 decades ago won't be withdrawn from Indian Navy then?

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when all else have crumbled to dust ,i still stand immortal

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thunderchief said:

Too bad Popeye is not here, he would probably had something to say about Indian Navy carrier ops ...

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Franklin said:

There is no air ops going on in those photo's. I can see girls with hand bags on the flight deck. Those are probably photo's of visitors milling around for the 1st year anniversary of the INS Vikramaditya's commissioning. Those people are most likely family members of the crew.

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