As India's lone aircraft carrier INS Viraat completes 25 years in service of the Indian Navy, Defence Express speaks to CO Viraat at Command centre
working as the “nerve centre” of the warship. During his stint at the headquarters
Captain Ajendra B Singh has been involved in formulation of naval doctrines.
Q. How important is aircraft carrier to the Indian Navy?
Aircraft carrier act as tools of detecting enemy’s
capability and neutralizing it before it becomes a threat. Aircraft carrier is the
core capability on which our naval strategy is based. Our endeavour on INS
Viraat is to provide a security umbrella – meaning I will not allow any one
into a particular area for a particular time, thus exercising sea control.
When we have ship to ship fight it is not like Pirates of
the Caribbean that we have hand-to-hand combat. It is the battle of technology.
Aircraft Carrier provides us the capability to strike enemy before it becomes a
threat.
Navies across the world are extension of foreign policy and
aircraft carrier are an important tool. If we talk about history, Royal Navy
won Falklands War due to aircraft carrier.
Q. Is the Indian Navy’s capability to operate an aircraft carrier
make Chinese Navy turn green with envy?
See you cannot reach a great power status in 10-15 days.
Navies are made over centuries. You have to keep building them for over years
and they are a costly proposition. So any navy aspiring to operate carriers
will be envious of countries operating them. Naval aviation is a great skill
and it takes 25 years to hone it. Once you build this capability you cannot do
away with it.
Any navy which has done away with the aircraft carrier
operating capability has later repented it. See Australian and German navies.
Q. How do you feel being at the command of the country’s
lone aircraft carrier and it completing 25 years in service?
It is a dream of a naval officer. I had also dreamt about
it. I have commanded three ships before Viraat – INS Vir, INS Vindhyagiri and INS
Trishul. Our generation of officers grew up looking forward to working onboard
on INS Vikrant and INS Viraat. We aspired and worked for it.
Q. How difficult is to operate such a huge ship?
The larger the ship the greater is the team work required to
operate it.
Q. What are the most cherishing moments of your tenure as
the Captain of Viraat?
During an exercise in Bay of Bengal we the ship was
continuously at sea for 23 odd days. It feels nice when the ship does well.
During that we performed night landing. It is the most difficult task to land
an aircraft on the deck in a pitch dark night. It demands rigorous training
schedule for pilots.
These pilots started solo deck flying last November and
managed night landing in February. Mind you deck is like a matchbox tossing and
turning at sea.
In this poor country the carriers finally becomes Museums as to operate this Carrier away at sea you need many other ships to escort this huge costly asset. As India is not having and cannot dare to have aggression policy of destroying any one by being offensive.
ReplyDeleteInstead of Carrier force if this country, who spend very hard earned money on Defense,creates the fleet for self defence of its huge coastal area first and that's what this country can maximum afford.usage of the huge recurring cost of carrier force for the upliftment of the poor men lives will serve the better cause. You will also support it if you see update status of the navy ships, out of the total strength, only 40% are ops and the situation is not going to change.
Some one has to take the view on this, One day expenditure of keeping it afloat can feed one poor village every day, can make the children educated who in turn will add to the upliftment of this country.
Well all of this is expendable assets with imaginary future thinking. Just think where is now the Japan Carrier force after world war II, but it is still surviving and progressing. Having a carrier force for India is like a poor family boy inspiring to own a Mercedes........