Is India Creating a Problem for Itself?

This isn't actually new, but it's worth talking about:

Taking a cue from its first indigenous aircraft carrier programme, India is now envisaging construction of its largest warship yet - a 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier named INS Vishal (literally meaning ‘huge’) with the latest fighter jets and choppers onboard. The warship is scheduled to enter the Indian Navy’s flotilla by 2025 and is presently in its design phase. “Taking a lesson from delays faced in the construction of the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier INS Vikrant, we have already begun working on the design of the next one with an added tonnage of 25,000 tonnes,” sources told Express. Where this sea leviathan will be constructed is yet to be finalised.

Assuming that the time frame is correct (and it doesn't sound overly ambitious), in 2025 India will be operating the 45000 ton former Soviet Vikramaditya, the 40000 ton Vikrant, and the 65000 ton Vishal. Vikramaditya will obviously have radically different maintenance requirements than the two domestic carriers, notwithstanding Russian construction advice and material transfer. We can imagine that the Indians will do their best to ensure co-operability of as many systems as possible between Vishal and Vikrant, but a 65000 ton ship is of necessity going to be different than a 40000 ton ship in consequential details.

Far from achieving economies of scale, it looks as if India is buying itself three separate carrier programs, each with distinct maintenance and operational requirements. Pilots cleared for landing on Vishal may be at peril if they try to land on Vikramaditya or Vikrant. In some sense this echoes the experience of the early naval aviation in the RN, IJN, and USN, where each new platform was considerably different from the last.  Projecting forward, though, I don't see this as a very good system for emulation.