Stratfor.com is reporting that accoridng to an article in the Weekly Standard "raised the possibility of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offering New Delhi the soon-to-be-decommissioned USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier during his trip to India. Then (and probably on a related note), Moscow made broad new overtures to resolve its longstanding dispute with New Delhi over the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. The potential sale of the Kitty Hawk — though U.S. defense officials adamantly have denied that it is even a possibility — would mark one of the most significant developments in global naval dynamics since the collapse of the Soviet navy."
The article states that it woudl most certaily be available before Admiral Gorshkov allowing India to gets ist carrier program back on schedule but that
"The Kitty Hawk, as an order-of-magnitude step above the Gorshkov, would represent several significant shifts. Its aircraft capacity is several times greater than either the Viraat or the Gorshkov’s, complicating not only logistics and maintenance coordination but also the much more complex management of the flight deck and flight operations, for which Indian sailors are unprepared. (The United States has spent decades mastering carrier aviation; it is not an art that can simply be picked up.) Even the manning and operation of a ship requiring a complement of nearly 3,000 (not including as many as 2,500 additional attached carrier air wing personnel) would present profound new challenges for the Indian navy.
And thus, especially now that the Gorshkov deal appears to be on the mend, New Delhi could find itself operating three different classes of aircraft carriers built in three different nations — each with very unique design features capable of deploying a different class of carrier aircraft. These will, in part, dictate very different flight deck procedures and flight operations practices.
Such a disparate carrier fleet has nightmare written all over it in terms of everything from coherent training of flight deck personnel and pilots to maintenance and logistical costs — to say nothing of attempting to coordinate operations. It could indeed be more trouble than it is worth."
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