Posted on 02/24/2015 4:46:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
India is fast tracking its project to build an indigenous aircraft carrier, since the country's oldest carrier is scheduled to retire next year, The Times Of India reports.
India's current INS Viraat aircraft carrier is set to retire next year after 56 years of service in the Indian navy. With a fleet of only 11 aging Harrier jump jets and a host of mechanical and restoration costs, it isn't economically or strategically viable to continue operating the vessel.
As the retirement will leave the Indian navy with only one other carrier, the INS Vikramaditya. So India has decided to speed up the development of its own aircraft carrier, according to The Times of India.
Although the vessel's exact size and propulsion system are still being proposed, India is planning for the Vishal to be a fully modern aircraft carrier. The Diplomat reports that the Vishal will displace 65,000 tons and will be constructed with US-provided Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS). This would allow the carrier to launch aircraft at a faster rate with improved ease, compared to previous Indian carriers.
Aside from EMALS, USNI News reports THAT the carrier will likely also feature a catapult assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) system similar to what's used aboard US Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. This system would allow the Vishal to launch a range of heavy fighters as well as surveillance planes.
The Times of India estimates that the Vishal should be complete within 10 to 12 years. The development of the carrier will likely receive significant help from a bilateral agreement between the US and India that lays the ground for "a working group to explore aircraft carrier technology sharing and design."
Aside from the Vishal, India is developing a smaller carrier, the INS Vikrant.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I'd hate to see how long it would take if they didn't fast track it.
We might actually get EMALS working by the time the Indians are ready to install it. From what I hear of ‘simulations’ it only works about 80% of the time.
But when you’re designing a ship that is likely to have either diesel or gas turbine propulsion (rather than a steam plant), your making other design designs that kind of force a choice like this.
These stories about India and China always remind me of the conversations I used to have as a college student with a post-doctoral fellow in chemistry with whom I worked.
He was an Indian guy, the first Indian I got to know well; although several of my TAs were from India, I wasn’t on any sort of social footing with them. This was when I was about 19 years old, and had very little knowledge about politics.
This would have been in 1974, so the Viet Nam was on its last legs, and the Cold War was in full swing.
Anyway, this Indian postdoc would have long conversations with me about politics. Mostly what he wanted to talk about was America. About how wrong it was for America to throw its weight around all over the world, and how awful the arms race was. In his view, it was pretty much all the fault of America. If only the United States did not insist on being a nuclear superpower, the other countries of the world - including the USSR - wouldn’t feel the need to keep up with us. It was just the terrible competitive spirit of mankind that was endangering life on Earth, and the United States was the main reason this competitive spirit had been unleashed.
Now its 40+ years later, and India has the technology and the economic strength to compete, and guess what? No one can stop them.
It's a damned shame ... but the only seriously focussed people are the insane ragheads ... like Leiningren's ants ... they just keep frikkin' COMIN'
People should read the story .. I did in Junior high and it was then a powerful story to my teenage boy's mind
Of course back then India was very much socialist.
I had been reading on the Indian independence movements. In its earlier days, it appears that they were looking for more of a market economy. When India gained independence, Britain had foisted a socialistic mindset on them - Ghandhi and Nehru were socialistic.
Now it has changed, with Narendra Modi pledging a “Thatcherite Revolution”. Yes, as in Margaret Thatcher.
India has vimanas, and if they can make an elephant burst into flames, what chance does a Chicom have?
India will end up being a nightmare for China.
Or even the Viraat.
Pakistan is a bigger threat to them.
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