Finally, 1st Picture Of An Indian MiG-29K On Vikramaditya!

Friend and colleague on the defence beat, Times Of India senior editor Rajat Pandit puts out this morning what, I'm pretty sure, is the first public photograph of an Indian Navy MiG-29K on INS Vikramaditya. When I was in Russia last year for her commissioning, I was deluged with pictures of videos of a Russian Fulcrum-D during aviation trials. Indian Navy Fulcrums began landing on the Vikramaditya in February this year, though the navy, strangely, didn't reveal very much. No pictures either. Earlier this month, an Indian MiG-29K suffered nose-wheel damage during a hard-landing. Either way, jet ops with the Black Panthers squadron is a go. We'll have more pictures by the end of day of the full INAS 303 crew with their aircraft on the ship.

(As we speak, Rajat and a band of journalists -- I couldn't go because of a new news show I'm in charge of, so our ed-at-large did -- are on board the aircraft carrier to report on the ceremonial day at sea for India's new prime minister.)

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