I am a bit puzzled – are you saying that the Su-33 needs further development to operate from a carrier? Or are trying to get at what would be needed to turn the Su-33 in to a plane designed to operate of a CATOBAR carrier?

Youre thread asks how to “Westernize” the Su-33, and by that I take to mean that you want to increase range and load carrying ability of this jet, as well of course to add to its weapons and sensors capability. If youre happy with the range and load carrying ability that the Su-33 already has, then you can ignore everything Ive said and just concentrate on new weapons and sensors for this aircraft. All Im saying is that increasing wing are of this jet wont work, so if you want a jet with more range and payload you have to start from scratch and design a new jet.

F-22 may, or may not, be able to catch up with EF due to TVC,

TVC? What is that thrust vectoring?

Reality 1: Lower wing loading = generally better agility

If that were true all fighters with a light wing loading would be great dog fighters, does the Mig-21 strike you as being agile? Even if the Mig-21 had a better thrust to weight ratio would that make it agile? I think its safer to say that fighters with a low wing loading AND a large tailplane in relation to wings size = generally better agility, Su-27 and F-22 both certainly qualify in that regard. In the case of the Su-27, the fact that its not FBW works to its advantage, becuase center of gravity is ahead of center of lift, this allows the plane to stall “properly” which works against the leading edge strake of the wings which counts as a lifting surface that shifts the center of lift well ahead of the center of lift of the wing itself even though its not calculated as wing area. This gives the Su-22 its ability to pull off ridiculously high AoA maneuvers like the cobra, well beyond the normal angle of attack that would be produced just by tail surface working against the wing, and the forward center of gravity corrects for it by stalling back to neutral after speed bleeds off…simple yet brilliant. This trick doesnt work with the Hornet because the Hornet is FBW. Although the leading edge strakes of the Hornet do allow it to achieve extreme AoA, it remains deep stalled in that high AoA and only has its 1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio to mush through in this condition. If The Hornets thrust to weight ratio was not unity, the aircraft would be completely worthless and extremely dangerous to fly as it would lose total control in a stall. For FBW jets its best to stick with the simple F-22 solution of very large tailplane to counter a large wing, such a jet remains very controllable even at extreme AoA.

The Mig-29/Su-27 series of aircraft are the most agile dogfighting jets in existence because of their high wing loading. If you were to increase their wing area they lose their ultra-agility. The F-22 has a low wing loading but maintains maneuverability by having very large elevator tail surfaces in relation to its wing size. This trick only works because the F-22 is FBW, as illogical as it sounds, the F-22’s huge barn door size elevator provides lift in level flight even when its providing down force in counter of wing lift. So increasing wing area to the Su-33 is out of the question, the only option for the UK is to start with a clean sheet of paper and design a naval jet like the F-22.

There is the Stormbird project where volunteers build 5 Me-262s, they were in posession of 85% of the original design drawings.
http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html

here is airshow footage of one of the jets they produced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8olc8KddOe4

Jumo 004 produced 1980 pounds of thrust and the engine itself weighed 1800 pounds. In comparison the J-85, a very popular turbojet engine used in the F-5 fighter and many other jets produces 2850 pounds of thrust and only weighs 395 pounds. It took a long time for the Me-262 to build up speed, so much time that it had to be escorted by piston engined fighters at takeoff until it built up enough speed to not be vulnerable to attack by enemy fighters. Once at combat speed it had very impressive handling, especially its ability to maintain speed in a turn, its turning ability would easily outclass modern jet fighters.