Malabar-17: Naval manoeuvres continue despite rough weather conditions

Malabar-17, the trilateral joint naval exercise, which began last week in Bay of Bengal, bringing the Indian Navy, Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force and United States (U.S.) Navy together, witnessed the ships of the three navies participating in naval manoeuvres at sea, despite the challenging weather.

The exercise also saw cross deck flying operations, wherein, helicopter from the United States Ship (USS) Shoup landed onboard Indian Naval Ship's (INS) Sahyadri and Japanese Naval (JN) Sazanami.

The helicopter from JN Sazanami undertook flying operations from the INS Sahyadri and the USS Shoup.

The cross deck flying operations require a high degree of interoperability and knowledge of procedures of participating ships and helicopters.

An Indian Navy Seaking helicopter undertook transfer Japanese personnel to the INS Vikramaditya as part of crew exchange programme during the exercise. It was followed by flying operations undertaken by the helicopters of the U.S. Navy ships.

The INS Jyoti, a tanker ship, undertook replenishment at sea with the USS shoup and the Japanese Navy ship Sazanami. During this operation, INS Jyoti passed the oil hoses to the US and Japanese Navies to exercise transfer of fuel.

The INS Vikramaditya, India's aircraft carrier participating in the exercise launched the MiG 29K fighter aircraft to undertake combat missions against the U.S. Navy F-18 fighter aircraft launched from the USS Nimitz, the USN aircraft carrier, for combined crew training.

In addition to the combat operations, the fighter aircraft from both navies undertook composite formation flying, thereby demonstrating another step in the interoperability aimed through this exercise.