They may acquire the F-35B at some point. And there’s the ATD-X programme which may very well evolve STOVL capability down the line.

Given their age and the the obsolescence of their systems wouldn’t they be more expensive to retain in service than the MRA4s?

There should be second one to cover aft sector. But will not.

There seems to be just enough clearance in that drawing. Anyway, it’s a rotating radar so it’s pointless to place it on a stationary position that only covers the front half of the ship.

can you explain the bold underlined part in detail regarding the problem with Kuznetsov and the likely problem for Vikramaditya?

It would be best to read the articles in these links, one of them courtesy of snake65. Google translate works pretty well.

http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/07/735/52.html
http://www.linago.hotmail.ru/text/98.htm

(Translated)
You can not imagine parking the aircraft carrier in the north. Aircraft carrier – it’s tens of thousands of tons of steel, hundreds of thousands of square feet of decks, cabins, sheds, compartments. To heat it all on their own in the northern winter is simply unreal! There’s a fourth-fifth deck stepped, foot of water due to sweating. He’s all frozen. One time in my life, “Kuznetsov” is more or less warmed up – in the Mediterranean Sea. It was then he was a real handsome. That’s when he was a real handsome. And since he is constantly with frozen portholes. Carrier should not spend the winter in the north. Carrier should not spend the winter in the north. He is killed. He is killed.

(Translated)
The most terrible problem is not marriage generates plants. Worst problems generate errors designers. Nobody can understand: what climate zone engineered TARK? According to the results of exploitation, he did not intended for the north. According to the results of exploitation, he did not intended for the north. I would like to answer this question now surviving designer TARK – AB Maureen (Nevsky PKB). I would like to answer this question now surviving designer TARK – AB Maureen (Nevsky PKB).

In fact: the ship poor insulation and poor heating system. In fact: the ship poor insulation and poor heating system. For this reason, winter misted windows, condensation on the walls poured streams, the crew freezes [2]. Winter 1998/1999 years. even frozen pipes in one of the main boilers. even frozen pipes in one of the main boilers. The fact that the external surface of any aircraft carrier is huge, a hundred times more than the area of ​​the destroyer. The more cooling surface, the more difficult to heat the internal volume vehicle. Steel carrier mass (length 305 m) in winter simply freezes for heating the vessel to a lot of energy and a powerful heat insulation – with physics useless to argue!

Foreign shipbuilders are widely used high-quality insulation from mineral (basalt) cotton coated with aluminum foil and reinforced with fiberglass mesh. Northern Fleet ships is desirable to have such a high quality thermal insulation. Apparently the “Kuznetsov” Isolation quite bad.

In order to not freeze in winter windows should be used triple-glazed windows. Yes, dear obtained if their intelligence design for an aircraft carrier based in the north…

Why not the Bars-29 or Zhuk-A? These are new aircraft, not MLUs. They should have a little future-proofing wrt avionics.

Thanks , but need some clarification.They would surely do the sea trials in Russia because if they do it after it comes to India , and something goes wrong , are they again going to haul it to Severodvinsk?

Generally the manufacturer does the sea trials and the navy does the acceptance trials.

What I read was that the trials had been ‘split up’ to save time. Probably the tropical weather trials will mostly be performed in India. The ship has a one-year warranty from Sevmash for any problems. After that it’ll spend its entire service life being repaired by Indian shipyards(The Indian Navy has purchased a complete set of technical documentation for about $80 mil).

Snake65 , for a long time it was thought those beams were used for construction , good to see Podberezovik-ET1 on Vikram.

The position though seems unusual to have the radar out there ,its a long range air search radar and should ideally get a favorable height and unobstructed view for 360 * search , it seems though it would cover just the frontal arc 180* while the other half will be blind to this radar , unless they have another similar radar at the back.

I don’t know if a few dozen metres of superstructure represents that much of an obstacle though. Anyway, the Podberezovik antenna has been mounted on the front since the earliest publicly displayed models, so I don’t think there’ll be any problems.

The tall beam at the centre seen in earlier photos(with the Indian flag) was actually for mounting the Rezistor-K4(‘Cake Stand’) TACAN. That’s the massive cylinder under the Fregat.

I know there are legal hurdles regarding internation defence cooperation in Japan, but they’ve been waived/bypassed in the past for joint programs with the US, haven’t they? And I said ‘Ideally’.