Deck-based combat jet trials over, Navy mulls final number to procure

Although the demonstration trials of French and American deck-based combat jets are over, the Indian Navy is yet to decide how many such aircraft are required for its two warships, including INS Vikrant. The indigenously built, Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 (IAC-1) class INS Vikrant will likely be formally inducted into the naval fleet around August 15, this year.

“The operational demonstration of Dassault Aviation’s Rafale-M and Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet is complete. Once the final report comes, we will process the case for an inter-governmental agreement to buy the fighters,” Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral Satish Namdeo Ghormade said on Tuesday.

However, Vice Admiral Ghormade said the number of fighter jets India proposed to procure for its two aircraft carriers, INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, was still undecided, but asserted that the purchase would happen through a government-to-government contract.

While India’s initial plan was to buy 57 deck-based fighters, it was revised after the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Aeronautical Development Agency claimed to have substantially improved the LCA-Navy—the initial version of this was discarded by the navy six years ago.

According to sources, the plan, now, is to buy around 26 or two squadrons of deck-based fighter jets as a stop-gap arrangement, till the home-grown twin-engine maritime fighter aircraft is ready. “We have a twin-engine deck-based fighter aircraft plan, but it will take some time,” the Vice Admiral said.

The Navy plans to commission the indigenous aircraft-carrier INS Vikrant by August, preferably around Independence Day. However, it all depends on the outcome of the trials that are currently going on.

The Vice Chief said the Indian Navy would induct 75 home-grown technologies as a part of the 75th year of Independence.

The maritime force would also showcase some of the export-ready indigenous technologies to friendly foreign countries during a two-day conference on July 18-19 organised by the Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation.

Currently 39 ships are under construction at Indian yards and two in Russia. “There has been no impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the two warships being constructed in the Russian shipyards,” he said.