With Gorshkov – the carrier – let’s not confuse refurbishment with modification: in order to operate Mig29s (for which it was not designed) the deck needed to be strengthened, enlarged and a skijump added. That is not the same as refurbishing. The outer hull from the flight deck down was left untouched: no rebuild took place there at all.

Judge for yourself then.

The Gorshkov as it originally was before reconstruction work began.

Reconstruction work started.

Current appearance:

More comparitive pics on this page.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/india-defence/11827-indian-acquisition-gorshkov-26.html

Even the hull was rebuilt. My point here is that the Vikramaditya can comfortably be expected to last another 30 years because of the extent of reworking. If the Kirovs are expected to last a similar period then everything from the cabling to the steel in the hull and superstructure will have to be refurbished.

and UAE

and India

The former has chosen the Pantsir-S1 and the latter, the SPYDER for land-based SHORADS. If you’re arguing for inter-services commonality as a selling point, it’s unlikely that most export customers will be looking to replace systems for all three services at the same time, like the UK is with ASRAAM/CAMM.

I just feel we should diversify our helicopter acquisitions, that’s all. Similar to the arguments for not buying MiG-35s in the MMRCA.

Is MOD seriously considering to use Tu-204 and IL-96 for military purpose like ASW, new AWACS and new gen Refullers , they would certainly be cheaper to procure and operate then IL-476 which cost $100 million per aircraft ?

As even the IAF has discovered the IL-76 family are expensive to operate and plagued with technical problems and spares shortages. Those aren’t entirely going to go away even with the resumption of production. Ultimately it’s a lot cheaper to use a widely-used commercial platform with readily available maintenance and spares.

Preparations for serial production of PD-14 engines at Perm Engine Plant have begun.

The PD-14 is an alternative engine for the future MS-21 airliner and has been promoted as a engine for the SSJ-130.

For military use, it’s planned as the engine for the Indo-Russian MTA and as a upgrade for the Il-76

(fragment – summary)
– The enterprise has implemented technical re-equipment program.
– Work shop 15 has been re-equipped with new machinery
– Construction of a new engineering building has started, which in 2011 will be equipped for the application of thermal barrier coatings by electron beam evaporation.
– Started construction of 2 new test stands

source:
http://www.i-mash.ru/news/nov_otrasl/11088-v-oao-permskijj-motornyjj-zavod-nachalas.html

I have heard concerns about low reliability and spares/support availability with Aviadvigtel’s PS-90A engines for commercial airliners. Hopefully these problems won’t extend to the PD-14 family as well.

If they can add 20-30 years of additional life post modernisation of Kirov then its worth pursuing , probably that is the time Russia will take to build 2 -3 CBG fleet.

Considering Gorshkov modernisation adds atleast 30 years of operational life , I see no reason why Kirov can add 20 – 25 years post deep modernisation.

The Gorshkov refurbishment wasn’t much of a success story. Ultimately they had to admit they were essentially building an all-new ship. For that level of modernisation, they’d even have to rebuild the Kirov’s hull, which would approach the cost of building a new one.

My guess is it’s a matter of pride/status for the Russians. Barring aircraft carriers the Kirov cruisers are the most powerful and imposing vessels in the Russian fleet, and their like will probably never be built again.

^Although I would still like to see evidence that design is real.

However, apparently, there is a smaller rotadome version based on the Y-8F600 platform (similar to the KJ-200 in the slideshow above), termed ZDK-03, supposedly for the PAF and export market. Previous reports have suggested the first of these examples may be delivered to the PAF by the end of this year, although nothing really materialised so far. I was hoping it could make an appearence at Zhuhai, but who knows.

Yes, that’s what I was referring to. Previously the conventional rotodome-based AWACS has been referred to as the KJ-200.