Indian Navy has finally has confirmed that design of the second indigenous aircraft carrier is in final stage and Director General of Naval Design Bureau Rear Admiral Atul Saxena only confirmed that navy is considering using nuclear-powered engine for it.
INS Vishal aka IAC-II will be over 65,000 tonnes in weight and will have CATOBAR Configuration system to launch heavier aircraft like larger fighters, AEW (airborne early-warning) aircraft and mid-air refueling tankers. General Atomics briefed Indian Navy on Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). EMALS is new-generation catapult that the Indian Navy is evaluating which uses a powerful electro-magnetic field instead of steam.
first EMALS-equipped carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, will enter service by 2016. While Indian Navy is still debating merits of Nuclear Powered carrier over Conventional Carrier, Going Nuclear with INS Vishal will not only throw out complex challenges to Indian shipbuilders but also cost India much more ,
According to estimate put out by Indian navy for Conventional Aircraft carrier of 65,000 tonnes in weight will cost close to 2.5 billion dollars but going Nuclear will add more to R&D in developing new reactors for the carrier . India has successfully developed a 83 MW Nuclear power plant for Indigenous developed Nuclear Submarines but an aircraft carrier over 65,000 tonnes in weight will require 4 times more power and development of bigger Nuclear reactors . Larger Aircraft carrier provides abundant space for bigger Reactor but will require few more years to develop and mature which could have direct effect on schedule and launch of INS Vishal .
Nuclear Aircraft carrier will not only be most expensive weapons system in its arsenal but also requires lot of investment in maintaining them , Nuclear carriers requires higher labor hours to maintain reactor and other complex systems. it also requires investment in Shipyards to train manpower to handle nuclear carriers , While China plans to build 3 to 4 Nuclear Aircraft carrier,
which will justify such Investment but Indian Navy always wanted to maintain 3 Aircraft carriers and plans to build only one Nuclear powered Aircraft carrier will not justify the cost and will limit Shipyard repairs to one or two docks . Nuclear Aircraft carrier doesn’t require nuclear refueling for 20 to 30 years but according countries who operate Nuclear aircraft carrier major overhaul and change of core of reactor and refueling is expensive and costs 58% more in life cycle cost of an conventional carrier after 2 or 3 decades in service. Even Inactive Nuclear Aircraft carrier cost money to decommission, and extensive work is necessary to remove spent nuclear fuel from the reactor plant and remove and dispose of the radio logically contaminated reactor plant and other system components. Some Experts argue that Instead of going Nuclear with INS Vishal , If India sticks to conventional carrier, we can actually be able to save enough money to work on smaller aircraft carrier in size of INS Vikrant class .
Flexibility of INS Vishal Going Nuclear | idrw.org
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