The Diplomat.
There’s a pronounced aerial component to Asia’s march to the seas.
The Indian Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the soon-to-be-commissioned INS Vikramaditya, recently took to the Barents Sea for its second shakedown cruise.
After putting the ship through its paces, the Russian shipyard Sevmash
will reportedly deliver it to the Indian Navy at year’s end—culminating a
prolonged, painful, sometimes comical overhaul process that converted
the Soviet “aircraft-carrying cruiser” Admiral Gorshkov into a more conventional flattop featuring a ski jump for vaulting short-takeoff warplanes into the skies.
Meanwhile, China’s first carrier, the Soviet-built vessel formerly known as Varyag, is underway for its longest sea trials
since first casting off lines last summer. It will reportedly cruise
the Bohai Sea for 25 days. Whether New Delhi and Beijing intend to build
blue-water fleets around carrier task forces is no longer in question.
They do, and they are.
Which aspiring sea power has the advantage in carrier aviation, China or India?
