India starts working on its largest Aircraft Carrier ( News Credits- UNI)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Indian Navy

Having two aircraft carriers already in the fleet, India has started working on second indigenous aircraft carrier, that would be the largest warship of Indian Navy.

INS Vikramaditya of Russian origin in 45,000 tonnes category was recently inducted in the Navy, while INS Virat having water displacement capacity of 28,000 tonne has been in service for more than two decades.

India's own aircraft carrier INS Vikrant was launched last year, which is undergoing series of vigorous sea trials at present.

Rear Admiral Anil Kumar Saxena, Director General in Directorate of Naval Designed (DND) in an exclusive interview to UNI, said, "We have reached at the stage of conceptualisation and the requirements of the vessel are being frozen, keeping in mind the future needs of the nation."

Although the weight of the ship will be fixed once all the requirements are frozen, but the future aircraft carrier should be in the range of 60 thousand tons, the officer said.

Admiral Saxena said that INS Vikrant, indigenous aircraft carrier built by Cochin Shipyard Limited is expected be inducted in the Indian Navy in December 2018.

Work on the first Indian aircraft carrier had begun in 1999, and the keel was laid in February, 2009. The carrier was floated out of its dry dock on December 29, 2011 and it was launched in 2013.

The officer indicated that the new carrier may be equipped with state of the art and most modern CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) system, which is used for the launch and recovery of aircraft for flight deck operations.

INS Vikrant is 262 metres (860 ft) long and 60 metres (200 ft) wide, and displaces about 40,000 metric tonnes. It features a Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) configuration with a ski-jump.

The deck is designed to enable aircraft such as the MiG-29K and LCA-Navy to operate from the carrier.

It is expected to carry an air group of up to thirty aircraft, which will include up to 30 fixed-wing aircraft, primarily the Mikoyan MiG-29K and the naval variant of the HAL Tejas Mark 2, besides carrying 10 Kamov Ka-31 or Westland Sea King helicopters.

Admiral Saxena said that next aircraft carrier would have much more 'parking space'; for the fighter jets and the choppers.

News Credits- UNI