INS Vikrant, India's first indigenous aircraft carrier, heads out to sea

The 40,000 tonne INS Vikrant is designed to operate a mix of aircraft

On a landmark day for Indian shipbuilding, Indian Naval Ship (INS) Vikrant, the country’s first indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-1), sailed out on Wednesday from Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) for her maiden sea trials.

“This is the largest and most complex warship ever to be designed and built in India,” stated an Indian Navy press release. “With the building of IAC-1, India joins a select group of six nations having the niche capability to indigenously design, build and integrate a state of the art aircraft carrier.

These six are the US, Russia, UK, France, China and Spain.

India has operated aircraft