On the 28 May India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, will be undocked at the Cochin Shipyard.
Although the extended first phase of work on the carrier was completed and the ship was launched in August 2013, funding delays for the second phase of construction postponed the official delivery of the aircraft carrier to the Indian Navy until 2014.
The second phase of construction of the vessel includes the installation of various weapons and sensors, the propulsion system, as well as the integration of the flight deck and the aircraft complex.
By July 2012 construction was already three years behind schedule, because of serious technical difficulties- the building of INS Vikrant was one of the biggest technological challenges that the Indian industry has ever undertaken.
Additionally, in November 2012, the NDTV channel reported that the cost of the construction of INS Vikrant had increased and the delivery had been delayed by at least five years.
According to the report, the ship was expected to be delivered to the Indian Navy after 2018, although initially it was scheduled to be delivered in 2014.
Today, all major equipment has been installed in INS Vikrant and the ship at least looks like an aircraft carrier, as work on the hull has been finished.
More work has yet to be done on the super structure of the vessel, the internal compartments, the piping system of the ship, the electrical cabling and the control system wiring.
These jobs will be done during the third stage of the second phase of the construction, based on a contract that was signed between Cochin Shipyard and the navy in December last year.
The equipment already installed will be set to work towards the end of the ongoing second phase, after which basin trials will commence in 2017, to be in time for delivery to the Indian Navy at the end of 2018, nine years after the keel was laid at the Cochin Shipyard.