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Flight-testing facility for ship-borne aircrafts at Dabolim soon

jha

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Flight-testing facility for ship-borne aircrafts at Dabolim soon idrw.org

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The Chief Staff Officer (Air) Goa Naval Area, Commander A S Baghel seen performing the ceremonials to kick off the structural work and mark the commencement of first steel cutting ceremony for ‘Shore Based Test Facility’ at Goa Shipyard Ltd, in Vasco on Monday. Also seen are GSL chairman and managing director, Rear Admiral (Retd) Vineet Bakhshi, senior officials of GSL and other dignitaries. (Sudesh Bhosle)

VASCO: In an innovative method to facilitate a pilot to land an aircraft safely for full-fledged flight testing of ship-borne attack aircraft as well as for training pilots to stimulate an aircraft carrier, the first-of-its-kind state-of-the-art and modernised testing facility in entire South Asian region christen as ‘Shore Based Test Facility’ would be set up at Naval Air Station Goa at Dabolim shortly, with an estimated cost of Rs 88 crore. The project is scheduled to be commissioned in 2012.
The first steel cutting ceremony to mark the commencement of the structural work for the state of the art SBTF was held at Goa Shipyard Limited on Monday morning wherein the Chief Staff Officer (Air) Goa Naval Area, Commander A S Baghel did the honour in presence of GSL chairman and managing director, Rear Admiral (Retd) Vineet Bakhshi, senior GSL officials and other dignitaries.
While speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’, the chairman and managing director, GSL, Rear Admiral (Retd) Vineet Bakhshi informed that GSL was proud to take up the structural work of the SBTF. He informed that GSL has an outstanding facility for building the vessel and that the modernisation work of the GSL would help out in taking the company to a greater height. Rear Admiral Bakhshi said that with this facility GSL will add another feather to its cap.
The Chief Staff Officer (Air) Goa Naval Area, Commander A S Baghel informed that the SBTF will be a great asset to the Indian Navy. He disclosed that India will be the third country to have this facility after Russia and the US. He stated that SBTF is being set up by the Aeronautical Development Agency.
Commander Baghel informed that the facility will have various systems for controlled take-off and landing as done on aircraft carriers. He opined that GSL has been appointed as the main co-coordinator for this project to handle the work related to steel procurement, structural fabrication, provisioning of equipment of Indian scope of supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the facility.
The project will provide India a facility to test developmental aircraft before they are cleared for use on board aircraft carriers and also provide the Indian Navy with a facility to hone the skills of their pilots before they are deployed on-board. GSL was selected as the execution agency in view of its excellent design, build and project management skills.
 
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Also this facility will ensure we don't have to look for towards US and Russia for training our Naval pilots like we had to do recently for Mig29K, in russia for short - take off and arrested recovery , since Harrier never used wire for recovery and we never had that experience.

New pilots would miss that Trip to Russia and US which was free of cost off-course.
 
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Welcome news. I thought, the work had already started.

One big step towards self-reliance.

Now we need a new private-public ship building facility with modular fabrication facility. I hope L&T and TATA take some initiatives.
 
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