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First indigenous aircraft carrier to be launched next year: Navy chief

India's first indigenous aircraft carrier, the IAC, will be launched next year and commissioned in 2014, navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma said at his maiden navy week press conference on Wednesday.

Admiral Verma said price negotiations for aircraft carrier Vikramaditya (formerly known as Admiral Gorshkov) were in their fourth and final stages but would not like to guess when the issue over the cost escalation would be decided.

He hinted that the second aircraft carrier (IAC-2) which is to follow will be of a different type. "We are re-looking at the design. It won't be a copy of what we have today," Verma said.

The keel of the 40,000 ton IAC was laid down by Defence Minister A.K. Antony at the Cochin shipyard in February this year. The first two MiG-29Ks are to be shipped from Russia in completely knocked down condition. It is to be the primary carrier-borne fighter aircraft for both the Vikramaditya and the IAC.

Verma said he had been assured by the DRDO that the LCA's naval variant would be ready for carrier trials by 2013 and for deployment on the Gorshkov/Vikramaditya as well as the IAC. He said the navy was doing a concept study 'for more capable carrier-borne aircraft' for the IAC-2.

Concepts currently being examined by the Directorate of Naval Design for the IAC-2 are for a conventionally powered carrier displacing over 50,000 tons and equipped with steam catapults (rather than the ski-jump on the Gorshkov/Vikramaditya and the IAC) to launch fourth generation aircraft.

Senior naval officials denied knowledge of receiving feelers for the sale of one of two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers currently being built for the Royal Navy. A UK newspaper reported that budget cuts had forced the UK to sell off one of the 65,000 ton carriers which cost 2 billion pounds.

Officials said that the navy's sole aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat which completes 50 years of service this year is due for another inspection by 2013 to assess the life remaining in the hull.

The former HMS Hermes was acquired from Britain in 1987 and was to serve only for five years after which she would be replaced by two indigenous aircraft carriers in the early 1990s. However, a decade-long delays in the IAC programme meant that the carrier had to serve for another two decades.

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