As aircraft carrier Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya, is ready for induction into the Indian Navy on November 16 in Russia, a team of fighter jet pilots left for Moscow on Thursday for advanced training in flying MIG-29K jets from the carrier once it reaches mother base in Karwar, Karnataka in January end.
This group of 10 experienced naval pilots have already done preliminary training in India and once trained in Russia on simulators and shore based training facility there, the core team will immediately start operational flying from Vikramaditya February onwards, officials said here on Thursday.
The Russia-trained pilots will form the core team of MIG-29K squadrons as they, in turn, will train the future batches of pilots in landing and taking off from the warship in the coming years, they said.
The Navy has already acquired 21 MIG-29Ks and remaining 24 jets will be inducted in the next one to two years for aircraft carrier. At present, the MIG-29Ks are based in Goa and the future batches of pilots will be trained there as the Indian shore based training facility is likely to get operational in December end.
As for the induction programme of Vikramaditya, they said Defence Minister A K Antony and Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi will be present in Russia during the ceremony on November 16.
Elaborating upon operational aspects of the carrier, officials said the ship has done more than 100 days of intensive sailing in the last few months as part of the part of final trials besides 500 sorties of fighter jets from the ship. However, these sorties were performed by Russian pilots, they said adding the performance of the ship and flying operations were monitored by the Indian experts.
Weighing more than 45,000 tones, the three-billion dollar ship will have a crew of 1,600 and most of them are there in Russia as they will bring it to India after induction. India and Russia had inked the deal for the carrier in 2004 and the ship is finally ready for induction after repeated delays.