With no Carrier for MiG29s, Navy to build a mock-up

NEW DELHI, JUNE 11 — Though the Indian Navy Air Station, INS Hansa, at Vasco, is to get the first of its new-generation aircraft carrier-based MiG-29K fighters later this month, the aircraft carrier they are to be based on – the Gorshkov – is still years away from being delivered to India. So it’s stuck with planes but nowhere for them to land or take off. So what does it do? It is getting a mock-up of a flight deck built to train naval aircrew. The full-size flight deck mock-up is to be built at INS Hansa, and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has begun talks with engineering contractors to construct it. It will have a ‘flight deck’ roughly the size of the Gorshkov’s, with a 198-metre runway. The plan is that it will also be used to train pilots on the naval version of the indigenously made Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, a senior DRDO source said, according to a report in The Telegraph.The main feature of the mock-up will be three arrester wires to ‘recover’ the landing aircraft, which slow down rapidly after they land by hooking into a cable with a hydraulic braking system. Two more cables are laid further along the flight deck, in case the landing aircraft fails to hook into the first one. The DRDO official said it was not yet decided if a ‘ski-jump’ to launch the aircraft will be a part of the mock-up. However, the Gorshkov flight deck is to be refitted with a ski-jump that the Indian Navy specifically asked for. The official said the facility will cost upwards of Rs 100 crore. Negotiations with contractors, including a Russian firm, are still on. Senior naval officers said the Navy had earlier experimented with a flight deck mock-up when it operated Sea Hawks in the 1980s from the now-decommissioned INS Vikrant. But that was in Kochi. The navy station presently operates Sea Harriers that are capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and therefore do not need a full-length flight deck, while the short take off and landing (STOL) versions are based on India’s only aircraft carrier, INS Viraat. The mock-up flight deck will be part of the Naval Aviation Training Centre, loosely modelled on a Ukrainian facility. It is being built not only to prepare for the Gorshkov but also for the indigenous air defence ship that is presently being built in Kochi, but is expected to sail only in 2011. Surprisingly, the naval version of the Tejas, in which the Indian Navy is investing heavily, will not be capable of landing and taking off from the Gorshkov. India had contracted to buy 12 single-seater MiG-29K and four twin-seater MiG-29 KUB aircraft as part of a $1.47 billion package deal along with the Gorshkov, which was rechristened as INS Vikramaditya on 20 January 2004; $650 million is for the refit of the vessel and $815 million for the aircraft, including helicopters. But the delivery of the Gorshkov has been delayed, and the Russians are demanding about $1.2 billion more. It is unlikely the carrier will be delivered before 2012, though the Navy is hoping that it will go into sea trials in 2010. India’s only other aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat, is being operated virtually at the end of its service life, after extensive refits. The MiG-29K and the MiG-29KUB, made by the MiG Corporation in its Lukhovitsky plant, near Moscow, were timed to be delivered along with the Gorshkov. The original contract envisaged the delivery of the Gorshkov in August 2008. Starting this month, naval aircrew are to begin a five-month training stint in Russia. Earlier, 32 naval pilots trained at a US naval facility in Pensacola, Florida.