Vikramaditya back in action after 2.5 yrs, Navy to get 2 more Romeo helicopters to deploy on board
The Indian Navy will later this month receive two MH-60 Romeo anti-submarine warfare helicopters, which will be deployed on board the INS Vikramaditya that has been operationalised after an exhaustive refit lasting nearly two and half years, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the defence and security establishment said that the two helicopters will be delivered to India by the US government around the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on an official visit to the country.
With the two, the Navy will have a total of five of these state-of-the-art helicopters, which will be deployed on the INS Vikramaditya, India’s only operational aircraft carrier.
While the Navy commissioned indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant in September last year, it is not yet operational and is set undergo four-five months of ‘guarantee refit’ later this month. Under this, the ship and its machinery will be examined like any new vessel under a guarantee period.
The carrier is slated to be operationalised by the end of this year, sources said.
The Navy had over the weekend announced the culmination of an exercise that showcased its capability and power to operate two aircraft carriers, with both INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant sailing together with their fleets. This involved the coordinated deployment of more than 35 aircraft in the Arabian Sea.
INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, the centrepieces of the exercise, serve as ‘floating sovereign airfields’, providing a launch platform for a wide array of aircraft, including MiG-29K fighter jets, MH60R, Kamov, Sea King, Chetak and ALH helicopters.
ThePrint in November last year reported that the elite fighter pilots of the Navy have not landed on an aircraft carrier for nearly two years.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, Bharat Express Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
