Indian MoD seeks to extend aircraft carrier warranty period

17 February 2014


The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has placed a proposal with Russia to double the warranty period for maintenance of the Indian Navy's aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, from 20 to 40 years, during a meeting held in the Joint Staff of Indian Navy in New Delhi.

Sevmash Shipyard would jointly carry out all maintenance works with the Indian Navy as part of the proposal, the Russian shipyard press service told Itar-Tass.

Currently, Russia is under contract to provide maintenance services for INS Vikramaditya for 20 years, and the new proposal seeks to extend the maintenance service timeframe to 40 years.

The press service said: "The meeting highlighted debates over terms of service life of the warship. In March chief executives of the enterprise will arrive in India again, they will discuss cooperation between Indian and Russian specialists," the Sevmash press service said.

Capable of accommodating a crew of 1,600, the completely refurbished 44,500t INS Vikramaditya has an overall length of about 284m, a maximum beam of about 60m and a range of over 7,000nm.

RIA Novosti cited the shipbuilder as saying: "Our Indian partners have proposed to conduct all service work on the ship together with Sevmash."

Powered by eight new generation steam boilers, the aircraft carrier can operate the MiG 29K multirole fighter aircraft, the Kamov 31 medium-weight naval helicopter and Kamov 28 naval anti-submarine helicopter, and Sikorsky Sea King and Chetak helicopters.

This article was first published on the Strategic Defence Intelligence website. For more information, please click here.



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