INDIGENOUS CARRIER VIKRANT

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs February 16, 2023 GS3, Science & technology Leave a comment 205 Views

The country’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, which is undergoing aviation trials, will be fully operational by year-end, and all efforts are on to make it happen, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral R. Hari Kumar, said on Wednesday.
The indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA-Navy) and the MiG-29K undertook maiden landings on the carrier earlier this month.
We see another two months of trials in which in addition to the instrumented aircraft, other aircraft will start landin
MF-STAR (multi-functional digital active electronically scanned array radar) fitment will commence from May onwards and should take three-four months time.
During that time, she will also undergo some guarantee refit activity. Thereafter, once the monsoon gets over, she will be operationally ready.
It is an accomplishment that the LCA (Navy) landed on INS Vikrant within six months of its commissioning, he stated while expressing satisfaction with the performance of the ship.
In January 2020, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully demonstrated arrested landing of LCA-Navy on INS Vikramaditya. However, the Navy has projected a requirement for a twin-engine aircraft with reasonable combat payload and range to operate from the carriers.
So the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) under the DRDO has embarked on developing a twin-engine deck-based fighter (TEDBF) with an all-up weight of 26 tonnes and wing folding based on the experience of LCA (Navy).
On this, Adm. Kumar said in their discussions with the ADA, DRDO and HAL were quite confident that by 2026 they should be able to develop the prototype and keep doing the trials and productionise it by 2031-32.
We may be able to get 45 aircraft by 2040. That is as far as indigenous aircraft are concerned
That is why we are looking at the acquisition of multi-role carrier-based aircraft, for which Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet and Dassault Aviation Rafale-M .