The Indian navy chief has already ruled out the Kitty Hawk-it’s twice as old as the Gorshkov & irrespective of it’s currrent condition,won’t serve as long.Besides,it’s twice the size,with over twice the crewing requirement.
About STOBAR,well everything I have read about it puts it at a disadvantage against catapults barring lower costs.
Obviously there is not substitute for a full deck, catapult-launched, arrested-landing carrier. The laughable attempt by France to create a pocket version of the concept has shown how silly it is.
That being said, a STOAL carrier, Short Take-Off, Arrested Landing type carrier COULD do a lot of things well that do not require quite the global reach that the USN requires.
People say that STOAL launched aircraft cannot carry enough ordnance to make their sorties worthwhile. I say there are a number of ways around that including RATO (Rocket assisted take-off), in-flight refueling from shore based aircraft, and even UAV tankers.
In fact, since UAV seems to be the coming thing in aircraft evolution anyhow, a STOAL capable version of a Hawkeye could be built carrying nothing but onboard electronics data-linked to the carrier. It would be expensive, but minus the need to carry 14 some-odd crewmembers it could be built a lot lighter, thus longer-ranged than a Hawkeye.
Taking the concept further, a UAV anti-sub version of the S-3A, data-linked to the carrier, with onboard sonabouys and torpedoes could plug what is now a major gap is USN fleet ASW capability.
Once all the bugs were worked out, a STOAL carrier built to USN specs would probably cost a third of the cost of a Nimitz class birdfarm, and when combined with a well thought out battlegroup, would give the USN a HUGE flexibility boost.
Will any of the above happen? HELL NO!
The USN is run by carrier pilots at all the important levels, except for the bubbleheads, (and they might as well be in a separate Navy) and pilots think the only purpose of the Navy to give them big flat ships to land and take off from, plus spiffy aircraft they can zoom around in.
Hard to play Tom Cruise with your balls clicking as you stride down corridors when all you do is sit at a console on deck and push a joystick around.