No it wouldn’t. India isn’t going to buy SeaPhoon. Neither is anybody else. STOBAR aircraft will always be inferior to CATOBAR because despite what the salesmen claim, STOBAR means leaving either some fuel or payload behind on the deck. CATOBAR means taking everything including the kitchen sink with you!:diablo:

The ideal is the exact opposite of STOBAR; Catapult launch for max fuel and payload, followed by vertical landing. P1154 anyone?;):D

You’d only need cat attachments if you’re mixing with CATOBAR aircraft. It would provide no benefit to a large axial deck.

Re that computer graphic above: How much sense does it make to have an angled deck on a ski-jump carrier? Was wondering the same on the Russian carrier for a long time.

The What if it misses the wires? You’re sending the aircraft barreling towards aircraft ready for takeoff or parking on the bow. The Axial deck has nothing to do with catapults, it came into being because the Royal Navy and US Navy/Marines corps were losing planes when pilots boltered in jets. The Axial deck given them a place to power up and come back around or slide safely (for everyone else, the pilot not so much) into the sea.

BAE are really trying to make sure that the fact that the French offering is both land and Sea Based doesnt lose them the contract.

Otherwise there are no customers for this jet.

Basically, yes. India has been hinting that they would prefer to buy the same aircraft for their future carriers that they do for this Air Force contract. This puts the Eurofighter at a disadvantage. They basically had to come up with something, basically last minute, to stay in the running. They can always tell the Indians after the fact that it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually working.