“The Super Hornet we are offering to the Indian Navy has the most advanced and critical capability. ![]() “The Super Hornet Block III has been built for carrier aircraft operations and it is the fighter that the US Navy depends on for its operations,” Salil Gupte, president of Boeing’s Indian chapter, told a news conference in August. In May, Boeing sent two F-18s to display the jet’s capability at a naval base in India’s seaside state of Goa in the latest pitch to sell the twin-engine plane to the world’s second largest arms importer. Military officials told RFI that 26 Western jets would eventually operate from the 860-foot long INS Vikrant, which will commence flight tests in November and continue until mid-2023. National auditors have said the ageing MiGs suffer from engine failures and other “operational deficiencies”. “The MiG-29 is a large aircraft – it was designed by the Russians and it is quite challenging to land on a deck,” Kumar told media on board the new carrier that cost 2.52b euros and took 20 years to build. The trouble with MiGsĬaptain Rajat Kumar, who leads INS Vikrant’s air wing, has reservations about the MiG-29s that will come on board his carrier, powered by four gas turbines that can pump out 88 megawatts of power. India bought 45 MiG-29s in installments starting 2011 and, nine years later, it cleared the import of 21 additional units and ordered the modernisation of 59 of the multi-role jets. "As of now, there is no one else in the race except Boeing and Dassault,” one official told RFI of India’s four-year quest for 57 dual-role combat jets for its two aircraft carriers. Vikrant will then rearm with Western aircraft once the deal has been approved by the government. ![]() Vikrant will initially be equipped with Russian-origin MiG-29s borrowed from India’s other aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. The giant vessel can hold 30 aircraft and helicopters – about half the capacity of the US Navy’s Nimitz class carriers. India this week commissioned the 43,000-ton INS Vikrant.
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