The way i see it is the three most probable buyers would be Russia, India, or Brazil. France is a long shot just because the local shipbuilding would go nuts if they bought it from the brits even though it was jointly designed.

Though given the potential cost all three are unlikely at the moment. Russia may be interested because of the Mistral deal, but the Indians are probably burned by the Gorshkov sage and the Brazilians may consider such a large carrier as overkill.

Russia: if bought one or even two would most likle keep the propulsion plant, shipboard management systems, but would replace all the ships sensors with Russian versions, ‘Top Plate’ (MR-760) and maybe a modfifed tombstone; and would install various russian weapons. Kashtans, AK-630M (the dual stealth version), SA-N- 9 SAM, and the RBU-6000 anti submarine mortar. It would then hold the SU-33 for the Intrem then the navalized PAKFA’s down the role

Maybe the airwing would change, but I can see the Russians preferring the superior British sensor and electronics suite.

India: If the IN got the CVF they could probably get the ship weapons and elctronics and whole but might replace the ships sensors and comm systems with indegious systems, or might go Italian. The combat system would be 3-4 76mm super rapids (same as on IAC-1 and 2) a smaller calibur gun (AK-630 maybe) and the Barak SAM system. Air wing would probably be Naval TEJAS and E-2D hawk eye that was recently authorized for the IN, maybe even F-35C down the line. Such a ship would replace delay and influnece the IAC-3 signifigantly

Or they may decide to use the CVF as an excuse to buy the F-35B which the Indian Navy’s been eyeing for some time.

Even for land use there are applications against sea(land)-skimming missiles, in particular ALCMs.

There are lot of these new Tu-214SR Special Mission aircraft being procured , One can just guess what role do they do but there is a good write up on this.

Probably SVR assets ?

SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT FOR TU-214

Pics Tu-214SR 1
Pics Tu-214SR 2

The new Tu-204SM looks quite promising until the MS-21 comes the Tu-204/214 will be the backbone of many special mission aircraft

The description in you quote very much hints at a SIGINT information-gathering role.

Yes FM1 is pretty much the standard for any upgrade of existing fleet or new types , from what I have read it does not need any changes in air intake and adds 1T more thrust ( ~ 13T )

Hmm… would it be possible to implement that on the Super-30 upgrade?:dev2:

On a different note, are there any plans for a replacement for the old A-50 AWACS? I should have thought the A-50EI deal would have tempted the Russians to develop an AESA radar-based system of their own…

They should have gone with the Airbus A319 MPA that was proposed for the Indian navy’s tender instead.

I believe imported target drones have also been used to validate Akash missile system. Having said this IIRC till late nineties the lakshya’s minimum height of flight was around 100m

It’s possible. From what I’ve read about it the Lakshya is a fairly basic targeting drone used for general testing. Anyway, the Akash official site advertises it as being effective for targets upto 600m/s, which is a little below Mach 2. At the least it will be a suitable replacement for the old SA-6.

IAF’s Surya Kirans to soon fly Hawks

IAF’s formation aerobatic team Surya Kirans have taken the first step to switch from the present Kiran MkII aircraft to the ‘Hawks’ Advanced Jet Trainers (AJT) that the Air Force acquired three years ago. “We have initiated the process of changing to the Hawks and we have already tried our hands on these aircraft,” a senior Surya Kirans officer said here. “The team will take another couple of years or more to completely shift to the Hawks aircraft,” he said.

The Kiran MkII or HJT-16, an indigenous twin-seater trainer, will be with the Surya Kirans for another five years before which the Hawks would be inducted into the team.

The nine-aircraft Surya Kirans is one of the three such teams in the world alongside the Royal Air Force’s and Canadian Air Force’s. It has completed 14 years of existence and was conferred with the status of an IAF fighter squadron in May 2006.
Full Story

So where does that put the HJT-36 trainer that was intended to replace the Kiran?

User trials to verify the consistency in performance of the total weapon system against low flying near range target, long range high altitude target, crossing and approaching target and ripple firing of two missiles from the same launcher against a low altitude receding target were conducted at ITR, Chandipur during Dec 2007. Akash missile successfully intercepted nine targets in successive launches. Fifth and last trial successfully took place at 2.15pm on 21st Dec at Chandipur on sea in which the Akash missile destroyed an Unmanned Air Vehicle (Lakshya) which was flying a path simulating an air attack.

http://www.akashsam.com/about.htm

Lakshya is a subsonic targeting drone. Also from that report I’m not convinced that it was flown simulating cruise-missile trajectories and not just low-flying aircraft.