Flight trials on Gorshkov

The first of the fighter jets will operate from the refurbished aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov by mid-July, in a major step towards ending the eight-year long wait of the Indian Navy for the second flat-top carrier in its flotilla.

As part of this critical phase of trials the aviation facility on board the 44,570 tonne and 283 metre-long Kiev class carrier will move to Barents Sea to the North of Russia and Norway.

India purchased Gorshkov from Russia in a single individual military sale between two countries standing at $2.2 billion.“The flight trials will continue for nearly 2-3 months from mid-July. And during this phase, various aviation facilities like navigation systems, direction systems like radar and long-range precision radar, fuel supply, electricity supply and the most important of them arrester gear wire system will be put to test,” officials said here. Two of Russian MiG-29K fighter jets will be carrying out ski-jump take offs and arrestor wire landings on board Gorshkov, to be rechristened in the Indian Navy as INS Vikramaditya - ‘Brave as the Sun’.Fighter jets are the most potent weapons on an aircraft carrier and landing and taking off from a floating runway is one of the trickiest aviation skills. Post-delivery, Indian Navy’s MiG-29Ks, and in future the naval variant of indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, will be operating from Vikramaditya.

“Indian Navy observers, about 15 of them, will be present on board the warship. But the tests will be carried out by the Russian crew,” officials added.