India's biggest ship, aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, finally arrives

India's biggest ship, aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya, which was acquired from Russia in November, has finally arrived in the Indian Navy's Area of Operation in the Arabian Sea after a long voyage.

India's biggest ship, aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya, which was acquired from Russia in November, has finally arrived in the Indian Navy's Area of Operation in the Arabian Sea after a long voyage. (Image courtesy: Indian Navy)

Throughout its long journey, INS Vikramaditya is being accompanied by INS Trikand, a Talwar class frigate, INS Delhi a Delhi class destroyer and INS Deepak, the fleet tanker. (Image courtesy: Indian Navy)
INS Vikramaditya is 284 metres long and 60 metres high - that's about as high as a 20-storeyed building. The ship weighs 40,000 tonnes and will be the biggest and heaviest ship to be operated by the Indian Navy. (Image courtesy: Indian Navy)
The warship can operate for 45 days without replenishment and will be manned by about 1600 people. Just the crew is expected to use over one lakh eggs, 200,000 litres of milk and over 16 tonnes of rice every month. (Image courtesy: Indian Navy)

INS Vikramaditya is a Kiev class aircraft carrier which was commissioned by Russian Navy in 1987 under the name Baku. It was later renamed as Admiral Gorshkov and last sailed in 1995 in Russia, before being offered to India. India agreed to buy it in 2004 for $974 million. The cost kept shooting up as Russia delayed the delivery by over five years.
After reaching Karwar some time next week, the aircraft carrier is expected to begin its weapons and air fleet integration. The air wing consists of 30 Mig 29K aircraft and six Kamov helicopters. (Image courtesy: Indian Navy)
(Image courtesy: Indian Navy)