Tri-Service
Aircraft Carrier Recycled Into Motorbikes
Ever wondered where all that scrap metal ends up when aircraft carriers are decommissioned?
Well one Indian manufacturer is making sure it doesn't go to waste. It's created a motorbike named 'Bajaj V', whose name carries the first letter of its previous incarnation, the Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.
Scrap metal has been harvested from the disintegrating ship and recast as a fuel tank for the motorcycle company's new bikes.
'Bajaj Autos', the group that commissioned the bike, say they wanted it to be "substantial, solid, and move with a sense of purpose" and to be "made with the invincible metal of INS Vikrant".
Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Auto, said:
"Metal from the INS Vikrant will be used to make the fuel tank of the bike.
"The V has been designed and built to be invincible and will change the experience of commuter biking."
INS Vikrant was originally built for the Royal Navy under the name Hercules during the Second World War.
Construction was halted after Germany's surrender, and thus the carrier never entered British service.
INS Vikrant with a Sea King helicopter during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971
India purchased the incomplete vessel from the UK in 1957, finishing construction by 1961.
INS Vikrant was then commissioned as India's first ever aircraft carrier and served a distinguished 36-year career in the country's navy.
She was ultimately preserved as a museum in Mumbai during her retirement from 1997 through to 2012, and then finally sold for scrap metal in 2014.
Eric Vas, President of Bajaj Autos, said:
"We are proud that lakhs of Indian citizens can now touch the metal of the legendary INS Vikrant."
Related topics
Join Our Newsletter
