westland P12 looks like Lysander plane with rear fuselage from lancaster bomber.

12 Mig29K and 4 Mig29UBK for Gorshkov . A large number is on the cards for the ADS and land based anti ship strike. the sea harrier/NLCA has a smaller footprint than Mig29 and one engine. Makes some sense to keep them for air defence duties and the Mig29K for strike and long range patrols to increase the airframes on board.

IAF has made it clear they are interested only in air-to-surface duties on land and the IAF brahmos will be all anti-surface variants. the Su30s currently doing some naval patrols will withdraw and IN needs to buy its own fleet either Mig29K,LCA or MKI. sort of like PLANAF.

I think the future belongs to a cross-breed of J10, LCA and a large crocodile. armed with the J10 rear, LCA front and a crocodile mouth in the nose, it will tear apart Raptor and teach a lesson to all imperialist running dogs trying to bully us poor asiatic brothers.

with 10 times the foreign investment , zero blockages to massive construction projects (Govt owns ALL land), hordes of huge seaports and airports, nearly twice the domestic savings rate, many times the trade volume and other “efficiencies” compared to india’s “raucous democrazy” the chinese manage what 2% better GDP growth per annum.

what did we need to learn again?

courtesy Vick@br here is a Janes pic of MKI with a centerline AAR pod and Litening on right chin pylon.

http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=su30refuel6pg.jpg

the carrier has no LPH features. IN is looking into licensing the french Mistral design for a few LPHD separately.

dont forget most of the time the biggest danger is SSK. a big and heavy ASW helicopter component should be expected.

the keel should have been layed few months back.

per BR: Construction of the ADS commenced with plate cutting on 11 April 2005 and the keel is planned to be laid down on 07 October 2005

the article below march1, 2006 confirms that work is ongoing:
http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/01/stories/2006030104122100.htm

they have been used for ground attack for decades now. cluster bombs and napalm is commonly seen in demos.