Another Major Delay For Navy’s 1st Indian Aircraft Carrier

India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, the new Vikrant, won’t be commissioned before 2017, Indian Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma said yesterday, indicating a further two year delay from the previously known time-frame. The Admiral explained that over and above existing delays, there had been serious problems in the installation of gearboxes, coupled with an unfortunate road accident from Pune to Kochi where a truck transporting generators for the ship turned turtle, forcing the shipbuilders to send the equipment back to the OEM for inspection and repair.

When the chief was asked about IAC-2, likely to be named Vishal, the Navy chief said, “It’s too soon to talk about that. I’ve got more pressing priorities now.” It is known that Vishal will be a much larger ship than the Vikrant, and therefore in a class of its own. While the Navy chief was circumspect about specifications and configuration, it is also near certain that the second carrier will be a CATOBAR flat-top — at least that’s what the Indian Navy is gunning for.

17 thoughts on “Another Major Delay For Navy’s 1st Indian Aircraft Carrier”

  1. 2012 to 2015 to 2017. Great going.

    Naval Shipbuilding needs a revolution. Project management at this scale is as much a science as an art and it is a skill that the Indian DPSU's have not acquired. Be it delays at HAL, MDL, GRSE, etc etc…

    You can get the ToT, you can get the advanced infrastructure and machinery, but PROJECT MANAGEMENT, who will teach us this ???

    Or do we have to keep making mistake to learn from them and still not make good on them ???

  2. From now on, for any project, a 50%partnership with a private firm such as L&T, should be made mandatory. That will avoid these delays.
    They need a framework, a process and a team to verify the results on a daily basis. Most of the delays are due to poor management and too much expectation. Capability study should be made before even starting the design phase.

    1. Why wun anybody when you Indians love bragging, and therefore become Easy target of most arms producers… Enjoy the ride sucker

  3. Its a matter of doncern that this project is being delayed for one reason or the other. I guess now the dependence on Russian support needs to be rethought. I guess by the time this carries comes into the battle group, it would have completed its 40% life time. Apart from this Indigenous Air craft production should be hastened up.

  4. Man did we ever finish anything in Time.

    Kal kare so aaj..aaj kare so ab…

    I guess Kabir's philosophy is not for these people.

    Damn it!

  5. INS Vishal should be a truly world class (1) nuclear-powered (2) CATOBAR (3) supercarrier.

    1. Nuclear-powered, because not only would it increase the effective independent operational range of the carrier but would also be more economical in the long run. The very availability, let alone cost, of fossil fuels would be a question over the next few decades. Hopefully the experience gained in manufacturing and operating nuclear subs in the next ten years would be helpful when designing a nuclear-powered carrier.

    2. CATOBAR (with modern EMALS catapult) because most modern western carrier-based aircraft (fighters like Rafale-M, F/A-18E/F SH and F-35C or naval AEW&C/EW/ASW aircraft like E-2D Hawkeye and EA-18G Growler) are all catapult launched. Presently, Viraat, Vikramaditya and Vikrant are all STOVL/STOBAR that limit us to carrying only small and lightly-loaded fighters. I am not sure what method the N-Tejas and N-PAKFA would use to take off but the latter could very likely need a CATOBAR setup due to its size and weight.

    3. Supercarrier (100,000 tonne displacement, supporting 75+ fixed wing aircraft and helicopters) for proper force projection and enabling carrying of wide variety of aircraft complement such as AEW&C/EW/ASW in addition to simple multirole fighters. Doctrinally, this would be our primary blue water carrier strike group in the larger IOR whereas Vikramaditya and Vikrant could be limited to the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal regions only.

    Anything less ambitious than the above would be a disappointment and insufficient in the long term, IMO.

  6. @anon 8.29
    Highly doubt there is ever going to be anything called N-Pakfa. Pakfa is an airsuperority fighter. It's still in development phase. Navalization will involve enormous design changes to strengthen its under carriage. This is Russia's first attempt at building a stealth fighter. We are still far away from the final production version. Naval version is a pipe dream.

  7. Well the navy recently said they were turning to private ship builders rather than govt-owned ones for new frigates and patrol ships because of their respects on deadlines, and efficiency. Wonder when will govt wil do something about this waste of money…

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