According to the source, the deadline was postponed to at least 2022
MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. The deadline for the delivery of the new ground test training complex (aviation) NITKA in Yeisk - the second Russian ground-based analog of the aircraft carrier-has been postponed to at least 2022 with the start of operation in 2023. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.
"In Yeisk, the completion of the construction of the complex is planned for the end of 2021-the beginning of 2022, delivery - in 2022, the beginning of operation - in 2023," he said.
TASS has no official confirmation of this information.
On March 22, 2016, Major General Igor Kozhin, who at that time was the chief of naval aviation of the Russian Navy, reported to the Minister of Defense that the complex in Yeisk would be commissioned by the end of the same year. Then the minister was shown a flight over the deck of a ground-based "aircraft carrier" of the Su-25UTG aircraft without a hook.
In 2014, together with the Crimea, the NITKA complex in Saki returned to Russia. It was once built in "iron" with the prospect of repeated modernization in the future, and, according to experts, this is its main advantage and difference from the NITKA complex in Yeysk, which is made of concrete. Now the THREAD in Saki is waiting for repair and modernization. It is assumed that this complex will train combat pilots of carrier-based aircraft for flights from the aircraft carrier.
In February 2017, the Northern Fleet's naval Carrier Strike Group (SF) returned to Severomorsk from the Mediterranean Sea. The group included, in particular, the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great. For the first time in the recent history of the Russian Navy, the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier-based aircraft was involved in a military operation in Syria. Currently, the aircraft carrier is undergoing repairs at the 35th Ship Repair Plant (a branch of the Zvezdochka ship repair center, part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation). The naval aviation of the Northern Fleet consists of two separate naval fighter regiments: the 279th (Su-33 and Su-25UTG) and the 100th (MiG-29K/KUB).
