INS Vishal: The Sea Fortress That Could Redraw India’s Naval Air Power

INS Vishal is best understood today as India’s most ambitious carrier concept rather than a sanctioned warship under construction. In public reporting and strategic discussion, the name usually refers to a future larger, CATOBAR-capable, potentially nuclear-powered Indian aircraft carrier meant to go well beyond the operating model of INS Vikrant. What gives this idea fresh relevance is that the Ministry of Defence’s TPCR 2025 now openly lists a future aircraft carrier, two EMALS, and nuclear propulsion for future aircraft carrier and other surface combatants as long-range capability requirements, while Reuters reported in September 2025 that India could build a third, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under that roadmap.

That is the crucial distinction: Vikrant is the present; Vishal is the next leap. INS Vikrant displaces about 45,000 tonnes, uses the STOBAR method with a ski-jump and arrester wires, carries up to 30 aircraft, and is powered by four gas turbines generating about 88 MW. It is a formidable carrier for sea control and regional power projection, but STOBAR imposes hard limits on launch weight, payload, fuel fraction, and the kinds of aircraft that can be sent into the air from the deck. Vishal, as envisioned in long-running reporting, is the answer to those limits: a carrier designed not merely to launch fighters, but to host a broader and heavier air wing with more reach, persistence, and surveillance depth.

The heart of that leap is CATOBAR—catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery. This matters far more than it sounds. A CATOBAR deck allows fighters to launch at higher all-up weights and opens the door to heavier support aircraft that a ski-jump carrier struggles to operate efficiently. USNI reported as early as 2015 that the Indian Navy’s Vishal studies leaned toward CATOBAR and saw it as a way to launch not just heavier fighters than the MiG-29K, but also heavier airborne surveillance aircraft. The technical logic is reinforced by General Atomics’ description of EMALS, which highlights greater launch operational ability, flexible architecture, and the ability to launch a wide range of aircraft weights. In plain defence terms, that means a future Indian supercarrier would not merely throw jets into the sky faster; it could also support a far more capable surveillance-and-strike ecosystem around those jets.

Propulsion is the second great question, and it is where Vishal moves from impressive to transformational. Officially, TPCR 2025 keeps the door open to nuclear propulsion for future aircraft carriers and other surface combatants, while Reuters reported that the proposed third carrier under the roadmap is expected to be nuclear-powered, a first for India. Nuclear propulsion would matter because it changes the operational geometry of a carrier group: more endurance, less dependence on refuelling rhythms, more electrical power for advanced aviation systems, and a better fit with high-demand subsystems such as catapults, sensors, and future directed-energy or high-end electronic warfare loads. At the same time, TPCR 2025 also separately flags electric propulsion for future Indian Navy ships, which suggests that India is still thinking through the architecture of its next generation of large combatants in a serious, system-level way rather than as a simple repeat of Vikrant.

A carrier is only as dangerous as its air wing, and here too Vishal sits at the intersection of present capability and future ambition. India has already signed for 26 Rafale-Marine fighters for carrier operations, with the official government explainer stating that they will deploy on INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya and serve as a major force multiplier at sea. In parallel, the Indian Navy and ADA are pursuing the Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF), which the Navy showcased as its future deck-based fighter at Aero India 2025, while the successful LCA (Navy) landing on Vikrant demonstrated that India has already crossed an important threshold in deck-based aircraft design, testing and carrier integration. This matters because Vishal, if it emerges in CATOBAR form, would be the natural platform on which India could eventually combine imported stopgap fighters, indigenous deck fighters, and heavier support aviation into a far more mature carrier air wing than the country has fielded so far.

Strategically, the case for a ship like Vishal is straightforward. India’s existing carrier force gives it visibility, deterrence, maritime strike options, and fleet air defence across the Indian Ocean region. A larger CATOBAR carrier would push that further into the realm of persistent sea control, longer-range strike, and more credible air-domain awareness over wider ocean spaces. It would also sit comfortably inside India’s broader maritime response to a more active Chinese naval presence and to the need for sustained power projection from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal and beyond. This is why carrier debates inside India have never really been about prestige alone; they are about whether the Navy wants to remain a two-carrier force centered on STOBAR operations or evolve into a heavier naval aviation power with deeper operational reach.

Industrial and technological reality, however, is where the dream becomes difficult. Building Vishal would demand much more than stretching Vikrant’s hull. It would require a mature catapult-and-arresting ecosystem, more powerful deck-handling and aviation support systems, potentially a nuclear propulsion solution that India is only now signaling in official roadmaps, and a shipyard-industrial network comfortable with far higher integration complexity. India does have a solid starting point: Vikrant itself is a major indigenous achievement, with 76% indigenous content, around 30,000 tonnes of Indian steel, and a large supplier ecosystem that Cochin Shipyard helped assemble. But a CATOBAR supercarrier is not just “more Vikrant.” It is an altogether more demanding

INS Vishal remains an evolving strategic programme. TPCR 2025 identifies the building blocks, while recent public DAC clearances in February 2026 and March 2026 announced a wide range of approvals for aircraft, missiles, generators, surveillance systems and other platforms, but did not announce an aircraft-carrier AoN in those releases. INS Vishal is a serious Indian naval ambition with growing doctrinal and technological backing.

If INS Vikrant proved that India can build and operate a modern indigenous carrier, then INS Vishal represents the next and much harder question: can India build a carrier that changes the quality of its naval aviation, not just the quantity of its decks? That is why Vishal remains such a compelling project. It is not merely a ship idea. It is the argument for whether India wants to remain a regional carrier operator—or become a true heavy carrier aviation power.

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