India is now finally getting set to launch its most ambitious indigenous military aviation project to build a fifth-generation fighter or the advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA) with advanced stealth features as well as 'supercruise' capabilities, reported the Times of India.
The case for the full-scale engineering development of the twin-engine AMCA prototypes has been finalized and will be sent for approval to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) by early next year after consultations between the defence and finance ministries, top sources said on Sunday.
Production of fifth-generation jets is an extremely complex and expensive affair, with the American F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning-II Joint Strike Fighter, the Chinese Chengdu J-20 and Russian Sukhoi-57 being the only operational ones around the globe at present.
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Experts, however, contend the J-20 and Sukhoi-57 fighters are still somewhat short of being true-blue fifth-generation fighters. The 36 Rafales being inducted by IAF, under the Rs 59,000 crore deal inked with France in September 2016, are 4.5-generation jets.
As of now, the development cost of the 25-tonne AMCA is estimated to be around Rs 15,000 crore, with the first prototype’s “rollout” by 2025-26 and production of the Mark-1 jets slated to begin in 2030-31 under the “aggressive timelines” set by DRDO and its Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA). A more realistic timeframe for the AMCA induction to kick-off, however, would be around 2035.
The AMCA project is critical for IAF, which is grappling with just 30-32 fighter squadrons and will not reach its sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons even with “planned inductions” over the next 10-15 years.
The detailed AMCA designing, which was sanctioned in December 2018, meets IAF’s “preliminary staff qualitative requirements” but the requisite powerful engine remains a major problem.
Consequently, the first two squadrons of AMCA Mark-1 will have the existing General Electric-414 afterburning turbofan engine in the 98 Kilonewton thrust class, while the next five mark-2 squadrons will have a more powerful 110 Kilonewton engine. "With the foreign collaborator to be selected by early-2022, the new engine will be concurrently developed indigenously,” said a source.
The advanced stealth features in the swing-role AMCA will range from “serpentine air-intake” and an internal bay for smart weapons to radar absorbing materials and conformal antenna.
The fighter will also have the supercruise capability to achieve supersonic cruise speeds without the use of afterburners as well as data fusion and multi-sensor integration with AESA (active electronically scanned array) radars.
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In the interim, IAF’s planned inductions include 73 Tejas Mark-1A fighters and 10 trainers, which will be delivered in the 2024-2028 timeframe under the Rs 46,898 crore deal inked with Hindustan Aeronautics in February this year.
Then there is the long-pending “Make in India” project for 114 new 4.5-generation fighters with “some fifth-generation capabilities” for over Rs 1.25 lakh crore, which has seven foreign contenders and is likely to get the initial “acceptance of necessity” next year.
There are some discussions also underway about whether India should leapfrog from the Tejas Mark-1A directly to the AMCA. “IAF will certainly require additional Tejas jets after the next 83 are delivered, whether they are enhanced variants of Mark-1A or Mark-2. Many technologies proven in their manufacture will be scaled up for AMCA,” said a source.