Author: Yuri does not take revenge today, and it is forbidden to reprint without permission
Today (28th), the Indian Navy's first domestic aircraft carrier "Vikrant" (R11) was finally delivered. However, there are still at least 1 or 2 years to go before it actually enters service or has combat capabilities, and before that, the "Super Sun King" (Vikramaditya, hull number R33), which was purchased and modified from Russia, is the only one that can be used, and this aircraft carrier can be said to be unremarkable when it was in service with the Russian Navy, and it did not encounter many US Navy warships, but it was blocked by environmental organization boats.
On the website of the world-famous environmental organization Greenpeace, there are 2 rare photos. Photo taken in June 1988, Greenpeace's dinghy, off the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia, intercepts the Soviet Navy's then-newly commissioned Type 1143.4 aircraft cruiser, the Baku, the predecessor of the Super Sun King.
Image: Baku Hull 103, the "Sky Flash" radar is the iconic look
Baku is the fourth Type 1143 heavy aircraft cruiser, named after Baku, the capital of Georgia in the Soviet Republic at that time, started construction at the Nikolayev Black Sea Shipyard in 1978, launched in 1982, delivered in December 1987 after a long outfitting and sea trial, officially commissioned in the Northern Fleet of the Soviet Navy in April 1988, and appeared in the Mediterranean sea in June as its first voyage to Its home port on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia - North Morsk.
Photo: Baku carrying multiple Ka-27s
After being intercepted by Greenpeace dinghies, between July and August 1988, Baku operated in the Mediterranean, in fact tracking the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class Eisenhower (CVN-69) nuclear carrier, but it was unlucky to emerge, losing one Yak-38U two-seat vertical take-off and landing fighter jet and one Ka-27PL helicopter in 2 months.
Picture: Next to the rear lift, there is the "dagger" 6 groups of 8 units "revolver" cold hanging hair
Greenpeace protested vigorously under the banner of radiation on the dinghy intercepting the Baku, and although the Baku was a conventionally powered aircraft carrier, in the eyes of this group of environmental fanatics, the 12 P-500 Basalt (SS-N-12 "sandbox") heavy supersonic long-range anti-ship missiles on the bow may have carried nuclear warheads.
Image: The Baku is heroic
As the fourth Type 1143, it is also the first to carry the "Sky Flash" phased array radar, equipped with a 3K95 "dagger" (SA-N-9, Doyle Naval Type) ship-to-air missile vertical firing system, air defense, especially anti-saturation strike capabilities greatly increased "Kiev" aircraft carriers, but like the sister ships "Kiev", "Minsk" and "Novorossiysk", it is also equipped with powerful "Basalt" supersonic anti-ship missiles, and the number has increased from 8 to 12.
Picture: The Yak-38 on the Novorossiysk flight deck is coated with an insulating coating
The Type 1143.5 Tbilisi (today's "Admiral Kuznetsov"), which entered service three years later, was equipped with a quasi-vertical launch device of the 12-unit P-700 "Granite" supersonic anti-ship missile, a carrier cruiser, which was both an option for the Soviet Navy to avoid being called an "aircraft carrier" and to be able to enter and exit the Turkish Strait.
Photo: In 1994, the Kuznetsov launched granite
Had the Soviet Union not disintegrated, baku would have been equipped with a more advanced Soviet 2nd-generation supersonic short-range/vertical take-off and landing carrier-based fighter, the Yak-141, the world's first practical supersonic hanging fighter than the Yak-38, which was ridiculed by the West as a "caged bird" or "defender of the mast" (with a combat radius of only 100 nautical miles).
Photo: The Yak-141, RD41 lift engine at the Farnborough Air Show in '92 had 2 units
The 15-ton R79 thrust vectoring main engine allows the Yak-141 to fly mach 1.7 at the fastest, two RD41 lift engines for take-off and landing, the Yak-141 uses fly-by-wire maneuvering, the "Beetle" pulse Doppler multifunction radar, and the R-73 infrared fighting, R-27 semi-active radar/infrared medium-range interceptor air-to-air missile, radar, avionics, weapons and MiG-29 are comparable, and the conventional take-off and landing combat radius reaches 900 km.
Image: Yak-141 radar, avionics, weapons and MiG-29 similar, is the standard fourth-generation aircraft (Russian standard)
However, this extremely advanced carrier-based aircraft has planted a big heel on the "Baku".
On October 5, 1991, the second Yak-141 test flight prototype (48-3, aircraft number "77") during the vertical landing of the "Baku" occurred a hard landing and caught fire, test pilot Vladimir Yakimov, with the help of the K-36LV automatic ejection seat, was rescued by a lifeboat, this Yak-141 was repaired and incapacitated, spent the rest of its life at the Monino Air Museum, in 1992, after a performance at the Farnborough Air Show in the United Kingdom, The Yak-141 project was frozen.
Image: Screenshot of the accident video
At this time, after independence, Russia was simply unable to support 4 "Kiev" class and 1 "Admiral Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier, in 1990 "Baku" was renamed "Admiral Gorshkov", in 1991, the ship only carried out more than 400 helicopter take-offs and landings, fixed-wing carrier aircraft except for the Yak-141 ship test, almost completely stopped, after a fire in 1992, the new aircraft carrier that had been in service for less than 4 years was completely suspended.
Photo: Admiral Gorshkov during a 1996 suspension
In 1994, considering that the "Vikrant" (the first generation, the Majestic class light aircraft carrier launched after the end of World War II) purchased from the United Kingdom was to be retired in 1997, and another "Virat" (formerly "Athletic God") aircraft carrier lacked a companion, India considered buying the ship, but India and Russia ripped the skin of the ship for more than 10 years, until 2004, and the aircraft carrier entered the "Northern Machinery Manufacturing Complex" shipyard in Severodvinsk from 1997 to deeply modify and install the ski jump flight deck. It was delivered after leaving the factory in 2013.
Picture: "Super Sun King", the island side passage, small lifts, are all congenital deficiencies
The Russians sold it to India for a symbolic $1 "cabbage price," charging only $2.3 billion for the Indians' refit, and $2.2 billion for an additional $2.2 billion to order 46 matching MiG-29K carrier-based fighter jets, bringing together $4.5 billion to get today's "Super Sun King" (Vikramaditya) aircraft carrier.