KOCHI: Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya is ready to set sail from here after undergoing her first Short Refit at the dry docks of the Cochin Shipyard Limited(CSL).
Inducted into the Indian Navy in 2014, the vessel’s third year of service with IN was marked by a 33 km-run by 33 Naval personnel. The event was called 33 X 33 Anniversary run of R33, the ship’s pennant number. Rear Admiral R J Nadkarni, Chief of Staff, Southern Naval Command presided.
Refit at certain intervals is required for the ship, as one-third of the ship, mostly made of steel, is underwater and is in contact with corrosive agents.
“We completed through inspection of the underwater parts of this ship,” said Captain Krishna Swaminathan, Commanding Officer of INS Vikramaditya. He also lauded the services of the Cochin Shipyard.
The ship had called at Kochi on September 10 and docked on September 23. The ship undocked on November 5.The largest ship to be commissioned into the Indian Navy, the aircraft carrier was originally commissioned in 1987 and it served with the then Soviet Union and later with the Russian Navies as Admiral Gorshkov before being decommissioned in 1996. India acquired the carrier in 2004 and after a refit the ship was commissioned into the Indian Navy in November 2013 and inducted into service in June 2014. Vikramaditya is capable of operating both conventional fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
Her primary embarked aircraft is MiG-29K, a Naval variant of MiG-29M. The MiG-29K is an advanced, all weather multi-role fighter capable of undertaking fleet air defence, low-level strike and anti-shipping roles.