From INS Vikrant to INS Vikramaditya, India’s history of aircraft carriers

Come 2 September and India will join the small club of countries that has the capability of building an aircraft carrier — through the reincarnated Vikrant.

On this day, India will commission the nation’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1), which will mark a “historical milestone of realisation of Nation’s commitment towards AatmaNirbharta” (self-reliance), the Indian Navy said in an official release.

Vikrant is the largest warship to have ever been built in India, and the first indigenously designed and built aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy. It puts India in an elite club of nations that have the capability to design and build these giant, powerful warships.

As the country approaches this significant milestone, we take a look back at India’s past and present aircraft carriers and how they have served the nation effectively.

INS Vikrant and INS Viraat

India’s maritime history changed in 1957 when the first aircraft carrier — INS Vikrant — was commissioned by Smt Vijayalakshmi Pandit at Belfast, United Kingdom.

Originally named as HMS Hercules, the vessel was built in the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard and launched as a part of Great Britain’s Majestic Class of vessels in the year 1945. However, even before she was brought into active operational duty, World War II came to an end and the ship was withdrawn from being used in active naval duty.

In the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, INS Vikrant played a stellar role despite many doubts that were raised about its seaworthiness ahead of the battle.

As Captain Hiranandani later recalled telling Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sardarilal Mathradas Nanda: “During the 1965 war, Vikrant was sitting in Bombay Harbour and did not go out to sea. If the same thing happened in 1971, Vikrant would be called a white elephant and naval aviation would be written off. Vikrant had to be seen operational if we didn’t fly an aircraft.”

As per reports, in just 10 days, over 300 strike sorties were flown from Vikrant. The warship had exceeded expectations.

In the following years, the war vessel underwent major re-hauling. However, after years of wear and tear, INS Vikrant after being decommissioned in 1997 served as a museum and was patronised by thousands of curious people, especially youth and students, as she lay anchored off Mumbai Harbour.

Maintenance and upkeep costs became overwhelming and after many hiccups and legal battles, she was finally sold as scrap for Rs 60 crore to IB Commercials Pvt Ltd in November 2014 after a glorious history of 71 years.

INS Viraat has the honour of being India’s oldest aircraft carrier. It also has the honour of being longest serving warship in the world. It held the Guinness Books of record for this, according to the Indian Navy.

INS Viraat was first commissioned into the British Royal Navy as the HMS Hermes on 18 November 1959. She served as the flagship of the Royal Navy’s task force during the Falklands War in 1982. She was decommissioned in 1985. Hermes was thereafter towed from Portsmouth Dockyard to Devonport Dockyard to be refitted and sold to India for $465 million.

The aircraft carrier was then commissioned into the Indian Navy on 12 May 1987. The conventional Centaur class aircraft carrier, whose name meant “giant” in Sanskrit, had a staff of 1,500 members on board. Its motto was (in Sanskrit) — “Jalamev Yasya Balmev Tasya” (One who controls the sea is all powerful).

The INS Viraat has a long history of service to the Indian Navy — 33 years.

INS Viraat first saw action in in Operation Jupiter in 1989 during the Indo-Sri Lanka strife by sending peacekeeping forces to Sri Lanka, post which she was affiliated with the Garhwal Rifles and Scouts of the Indian Army in 1990.

INS Viraat also played a substantial role in blockading Pakistani ports, primarily the Karachi port as part of 1999’s Operation Vijay. Viraat then saw action in Operation Parakram that took place in 2001-2002, following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament.

Nicknamed the Grand Old Lady, this ship has participated in various international joint exercises like in Malabar with the US Navy, Varuna with the French Navy, Naseem-ul-Bahr with the Omani Navy, and was an important part of the annual Theatre Level Operation Exercise (TROPEX) in 2014.

The illustrious era of the INS Viraat came to an end when it was decommissioned by the Indian Navy in March 2017.

At the time of its decommissioning in March 2017, the Navy had said, “Under the Indian Flag, the ship has clocked more than 22,622 flying hours by various aircraft and spent nearly 2252 days at sea sailing across 5,88,287 nautical miles or 10,94,215 kilometres. This implies that Viraat has spent seven years at sea, circumnavigating the globe 27 times. Since her inception, she has had a total of 80,715 hours of boilers running. INS Viraat had been commanded by 22 captains since 1987.

In September 2020, it was towed to Alang in Gujarat where it was broken down and sold as scrap.

Earlier, there had been plans and even some movements by the state governments of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh governments towards preserving the historic carrier and converting it into a museum. There were also crowdfunding efforts towards the same goal, which were unsuccessful.

However, after not receiving any concrete bid towards preservation, the Centre decided to auction the ship to be broken and sold as scrap.

INS Vikramaditya

INS Vikramaditya, a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier, joined the Indian Navy on 16 November 2013.

Launched in the early 1980s, the carrier, which was originally named as Baku, served the Soviet Navy from 1987 to 1991. The vessel was decommissioned in 1996, after spending four years with the Russian Navy as a carrier named as Admiral Gorshkov. Since then, the government of India had started negotiations with Russia to acquire Admiral Gorshkov.

And, in the year 2004, a very important naval accord was struck between long time military allies India and Russia to make the aircraft carrier part of the Indian Navy.

With a displacement of 45,000 tonnes, the warship is capable of carrying over 30 aircraft and helicopters. Featuring a total of 22 decks, the carrier has the capacity to accommodate more than 1,600 personnel on board, including officers and sailors.

Today, she is considered as a force to reckon with in the Indian Ocean Region.

INS Vikramaditya is also the first ever warship to have an ATM on board. The vessel houses an ATM, which is operating through a satellite link, of State Bank of India to save time and resources.

In June 2016, INS Vikramaditya reportedly met with an accident while undergoing a scheduled major refit at Karwar naval base. A sailor and a civilian worker were killed due to a toxic gas leak that happened during maintenance work in the Sewage Treatment Plant compartment of the warship.

Despite this, the arrival of INS Vikramaditya has added a unique shine and pride to the history of the Indian naval force.

INS Vishaal

This warship is the future of the Indian Navy and is in the project phase as of now and thus there is no telling how it might be built. Vishaal is to be India’s second indigenous aircraft carrier, but will not follow the same model as Vikrant.

The Diplomat reports that its launch system is to be CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) or, more precisely, its new generation: EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System). Such a system is being developed by the Americans and thus India would have to team up with them; so far, an Indo-American working group has been formed for that purpose.

With inputs from agencies

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