Forum: General F-35 Forum

Indians Discuss Future Carrier Plans AIN Defense Perspective » August 10, 2012
by Neelam Mathews

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... rier-plans

"...Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma told AIN that the design of the second carrier has not been decided. IAC-1 has a ski jump, but it has not been decided yet whether a planned second indigenous carrier (IAC-2) would be similarly equipped with a ski jump for short-takeoff but arrested recovery (Stobar) operations. Russia has proposed joint development of an advanced carrier design to India.

[We] do not rule out the IAC-2 catapult or the F-35 [naval version] in the future…it will be years before we decide,” Verma said. “Some people are jumping to conclusions [on the design]. The training, maintenance and aircraft commonality issues we will face with the catapult design are entirely different. We have other priorities…We have to examine what would be a reasonable time-frame for introduction,” he added.

Should India opt for the catapult design, it would need Western aircraft. The navy has already shown interest in Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye AEW aircraft. Lockheed Martin, too, has proposed the naval version of the F-35 to the Indian navy...."

More at the URL of course.

F-16.net Sponsor

I am excited about the continued progress of India's naval aviaton program and am sincerely encouraged by recent news of successful air ops testing of INS Vikramaditya. A strong Indian military is important for America and her allies as a balancing power in the region.

But I feel I can't voice my concern enough as a citizen on the inherent security risk of sharing the F-35 with India because of their involvement in the PAK-FA/FGFA project. No way. Let them be strong, let them be great allies. But not in any way that makes it easier for potential enemies (not India) to get their hands on our 5th generation fighter tech. My 2cents.

Be interesting to see how they develop a aircraft carrier catapult. To my knowledge the U.S.A. is the only country that manufactures them, Britain did but hasn't in years and Russian never did.

I am worried about transfer of new catapault technology as well as the 5th gen tech, FlightDreamz. Currently the only deployed powerplant capable of flinging 30 tons of combat-loaded jet aloft is a nuclear reactor. Future CATOBAR-capable carriers will need something like that to generate the steam or the electricity for electromagnetic cats. Since nukes are prohobitively expensive, the Indians and anyone else wanting CATOBAR ops (like the Chinese) would look to get poweplant knowledge and EMALS technology in whatever way they can.

At least one British/Scottish firm claims to manufacture steam catapults (and conventional arrestor gear) whilst there is at least one candidate there for an alternative style catapult. These manufacturers were put forward during the CVF planning a decade ago and resurrected during the recent controversy - to no avail. The UK also has an alternative British/French EMALS maker 'converteam', builder of a small EMALS drone launcher at moment, also a potential maker of same during UK CVF F-35C fiasco.

The possible use by India of F-35(C) is a long way off - it at all - as mentioned in the article above.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

Indians Discuss Future Carrier Plans [F-35C?] 10 Aug 2012