UK eager to help India design aircraft carrier

The British minister for defence procurement, James Heappey, has affirmed the UK’S eagerness to assist the Indian Navy with designing and building its second indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vishal.

Asked whether the UK had offered carrier design cooperation at the political level, Heappey affirmed: “Very much so! At the very highest level.” Cooperation on aircraft carrier design was also discussed on November 28 in an India-uk meeting in New Delhi.

Terming aircraft carrier design “the most totemic” of Uk-india cooperation opportunities, Heappey told Business Standard: “The Royal Navy has world-beating electrical propulsion and operational experience of managing electrical propulsion. That is a real opportunity to develop capability and understanding together.”

The Indian Navy wants INS Vishal to be a 65,000-tonne carrier with an all-electric propulsion system — both features that are common with the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers: Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

For several years, New Delhi has sought to design INS Vishal in partnership with the US Navy, the world’s pre-eminent builder and operator of aircraft carriers. The US operates 11 of the world’s 21 carriers and, by far, the most potent ones.

Towards this end, the Indian and American navies established a joint working group (JWG) on aircraft carrier cooperation in January 2015. India was considering a nuclear-powered carrier like the American vessels. It is also planning a state-of-the-art American “electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS)" that can launch not just fighter aircraft, but also the game-changing E2D Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft.

However, with nuclear propulsion ruled out because India does not have a suitable nuclear reactor, and severe budget constraints casting a shadow over the EMALS, INS Vishal is increasingly looking like the British carriers.

But one feature that is being considered for INS Vishal would differentiate it from British carriers. Both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales incorporate “short take-off but vertical landing” (STOVL) systems to operate their aircraft. Their on-board F-35B fighters take off from a ski-jump and land back by hovering like a helicopter and lowering itself onto the deck.

In contrast, fighters on INS Vishal would take off with the help of a catapult and land by snagging their tail hooks on arrester wires laid across the deck, which then unspool, dragging the fighter to a halt. This is called “catapult assisted takeoff but arrested landing (CATOBAR)”.

Heappey argued India does not need to incur the expense of catapult launch systems. Meanwhile, the British carriers are being fitted with arrestor wires.