International newswires rushed to report that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in India to promote aging aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk as part of the deal to deliver 65 Boeing Super Hornet fighters to the Indian Air Force.

Sounds really strange, and U.S. and Indian officials have denied any negotiations on the issue and expressed doubts that the rumored proposal may have any sense.

Just think about it yourself.

- Is India so much interested in U.S. armaments that it will take delivery of the very expensive in maintenance aircraft carrier? The answer is “no” for geopolitical and business reasons. 
- Is the U.S. so much interested in the Indian defense market? The answer is either “no” for political reasons.

Of course, New Delhi has its own reasons for terminating the contract with Russia, which is lagging behind the agreed schedule and has set back the completion date from 2008 to 2012. Russia’s contractor, Sevmash, also demands additional $1 billion from the Indians to accomplish the project...

But India has far more reasons to be still waiting for delivery of Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov with several dozen MiG-29K/KUB naval fighters than to receive USS Kitty Hawk and Super Hornets:

-         it has developed its own navy strategy based on three aircraft carriers of smaller size compared to Kitty Hawk

-         the Russians are ready to share military half-secret technologies (and the Americans are not)

-         Russian MiGs will be in the end cheaper taking into account post-sale service
- the Indian Navy does not need heavy Super Hornets, otherwise they would have been negotiating terms of supplies of similar but Russian-made Sukhoi jets

The Indian government is likely to allocate eventually another $1 billion for the Admiral Gorshkov project saying: “damned Russians…”

P.S.

Russian MiG-29s are among the best jetfighters in the world despite the fact that the basic platform has not changed since the 1980s – except for the introduction of thrust-vectoring engine nozzles which has happened recently.

MiG-29K/MiG-29KUB

Both the MiG-29K (single seat) and MiG-29KUB (double seat) aircraft are the "4++" generation multi-role fighters intended for air-defense missions of naval forces, air superiority gaining, sea & ground targets destruction with the high precision guided weapons day and night and in any weather conditions.

Some info about MiG (http://www.migavia.ru/eng/military_e/index_mil_e.html): 
The MiG-29K/KUB carrier-based fighters are the basic aircraft of a new unified family including also the MiG-29M/M2 and MiG-35/MiG-35D aircraft.

The MiG-29K/KUB aircraft are based on the aircraft-carriers with tonnage from 28,000 tons, equipped with take-off ramp and landing arrestor, as well as at the airfields.

Main technical and technological innovations, applied on the MiG-29K/KUB fighters are the following:
– improved airframe with about 15% composite materials application;
– folding wing with upgraded high-lift devices improving take-off/landing performance;
– fly-by-wire control system with quadruple redundancy;
– significantly reduced signature in radar range;
– increased weapons load, stored at eight external hard points;
– increased internal fuel capacity and in-flight refueling possibility;
– possibility of other aircraft refueling being equipped with "PAZ-1MK" refueling unit.

The MiG-29K/KUB fighters as well as other aircraft of the unified family, have improved operational characteristics and higher reliability of assemblies, systems and units. In comparison with the previous fighters, the MiG-29K/KUB flight hours are increased more than twice, but a flight hour cost is reduced about 2.5 times. The MiG-29K/KUB fighters operate without overhaul.