With the new Russian MiG-29K fighter set to make its first flight in three months, the Navy, the aircraft’s first customer, will shortly dispatch a team of senior test pilots to Moscow to get a feel of the new machine and make sure it receives operational clearance on schedule.

A fleet of 16 MiG-29Ks are to be delivered to New Delhi for operations off the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, currently undergoing refit in Severodvinsk in north Russia. The aircrafts are to be delivered by August, 2008 but the deadline could be stretched by about six months for potential delays owing to extreme climate at the time.

Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash, who returned from Vladivostok this morning after an official tour of Russia, flew an MiG-29M2 outside Moscow last week, fitted with equipment from the naval K-variant, also called the Fulcrum-D.

Owing to its specialised role as a deck-based fighter, the naval K-variant will be distinguished by more powerful twin-engines, foldable wings and nose-cone, additional fuel tanks on the fuselage, strengthened landing gear and a tail-hook for arrested landings on a carrier deck.

The navy already has groups of pilots training for carrier-based conventional jet operations at the US Navy training school in Pensacola, Florida, to gear up for entirely new flight techniques. The Navy currently operates unconventional vertical take-off and landing Sea Harrier jump-jets off INS Viraat. In comparison, the K-variant will have longer range and role not restricted to fleet air defence.

Ahead of formal training on the MiG-29K that will begin in Russia next year, the Navy, which has a handful of MiG-29-trained pilots, will soon begin training a larger group of pilots on the IAF’s MiG-29UBs to acquaint them with the Fulcrum’s basic airframe, limitations and response.

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