I suspect it depends upon the timeframes. I don’t think the Indians will want to be prototyping the new French aircraft carrier. No doubt paying handsomely for the privilege of trouble shooting the design on the behalf of the French Navy. If the Indians are prepared to wait for the French to build one first however, that might be different, but the INS Vishal is supposed to enter service in the early 2030s, so the timing would be pretty tight. The Queen Elizabeth Class design appears to be working and there are now two display models to tour and view. The hull and drivetrains are de-risked and the USN are busy sorting out the teething problems with the EMALS and AAG. The ‘only’ risk is to marry the ship and the CATOBAR equipment. The addition of an angle deck has been previously thought through and designs exist and should be much easier to implement in a new build than trying to convert a mostly complete vessel, as the British briefly (and expensively) contemplated in 2010-2012.inch wrote:Not sure if qe design more beneficial to India altho be a great asset or sticking with France new design for c de qualle replacement as that's will be an emals design straight from the get go ,plus they could tie in with the new carrier fighter France will build replacement for rafale that India already have ,kind of makes more sense them sticking with France altho don't get me wrong seeing another qe derivative design in India would be good
In regards to sharing aircraft development the Indians seem pretty keen on building up their own indigenous aviation industry and I suspect they will want to use their new twin engined naval fighter, which is currently in development from the less than successful navalised LCA(N) Tejas programme and is supposed to be flying by 2026, as the backbone of the carrier’s air wing. The Rafale replacement (a navalised derivative of the European FCAS programme) isn’t due to be in service until the late 2030s/early 2040s, so doesn’t really tie up in terms of timescale.