Her Captain’s Voice

Its a good news for Military hardware followers of India. It was a long story which started in 1998 in Russia when it says it is willing to give-out its retired aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov to India for free of cost, provided it should be re-fitted in their Shipyards and delivery should be made with a fleet of MIG29K carrier borne aircrafts. The deal was gladly signed between the two countries and scheduled to be delivered in late 2008. But due to many told and untold backstage works the delivery was delayed and more over the Russians asked for an additional $2 billion dollars to complete the work. It was accepted by India and the new scheduled delivery date as of now is 2012 along with three Talwar class frigates in the same year.

Right now the carrier is getting its shape and ready to be launched in water from its dry dock. The hull was completed and painted, Russian News agency told.

Eventhough there are no official photographs of Vikramadithya in dry dock are published by either Russian or Indian government, there is an un-official web photo album which shows every step of vikramadithya’s construction and rare history records.

Admiral Gorshkov while in Service:

Check out this link to find the most expected photos of Vikramadithya. (Comments and names are in Russian. Will be happy if someone able translate it.)

Thanks to Igor for his Picasa album which has the photos of Vikramadithya.

Photo courtesy: Wikipedia