The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is an Indian programme to develop a fifth-generation stealth, multirole,

air superiority fighter An air superiority fighter (or air-superiority fighter) is a fighter aircraft designed to seize control of enemy airspace by establishing tactical dominance ( air superiority) over the opposing air force. Air-superiority fighters are primarily ...

for the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...

and the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

which will also include sixth-generation technologies. The design of the aircraft is carried out by

Aeronautical Development Agency The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) under Department of Defence Research and Development (DR&D) of India's Ministry of Defence was established at Bangalore, in 1984 to oversee the development of the nation's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) p ...

(ADA), an aircraft design and development agency constituted under

Defence Research and Development Organisation The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India ...

(DRDO). It is expected to be produced by a public-private joint venture between the DRDO,

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is an Indian state-owned aerospace and defence (military), defence company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. Established on 23 December 1940, HAL is one of the oldest and largest aerospace and defence manuf ...

(HAL), and an Indian private company. The development cost is estimated to be around ₹15,000

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

(~$2 billion). AMCA will be a single-seat,

twin-engine A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines. A twinjet is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. Fuel efficien ...

aircraft. The AMCA Mark 1 will come equipped with 5.5 generation technologies and Mark 2 will have the incremental 6th generation technology upgrades. The AMCA is intended to perform a multitude of missions including

Air supremacy Aerial supremacy (also air superiority) is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of com ...

, Ground-Strike, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) and

Electronic Warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponen ...

(EW) missions. The Indian government claims it will be a potent replacement for the

Sukhoi Su-30MKI The Sukhoi Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name: Flanker-H) is a twinjet Multirole combat aircraft, multirole air superiority fighter developed by Russia's Sukhoi and built under licence by India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian A ...

air superiority fighter, which forms the backbone of the IAF fighter fleet. The AMCA design is optimised for low radar cross section and

supercruise Supercruise is sustained supersonic flight of a supersonic aircraft with a useful cargo, passenger, or weapons load without using afterburner (also known as "reheat"). Many supersonic military aircraft are not capable of supercruise and can only m ...

capability. Feasibility study on AMCA and the preliminary design stage have been completed, and the project entered the detailed design phase in February 2019. A CAD model of the aircraft was shown at Aero India 2019. The first flight is expected to be by 2024-25 and serial production might begin by 2030. The AMCA is currently the only 5th generation fighter under development in India, expected to get

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

approval in 2022. The aircraft, along with its naval variant, is intended to provide the bulk of the crewed tactical airpower of the

and the

over the coming decades. Some analysts have questioned the feasibility of India's ability to independently develop a fifth generation fighter aircraft as India lacks the industrial base and technical capabilities to do so. India also lacks a robust military industrial base to manufacture the aircraft in large numbers.

Development

AMCA Program

The AMCA programme, earlier known as Medium Combat Aircraft (MCA) programme, was initiated to develop a twin engine fighter which incorporates stealth features to replace the main strike fighters of IAF viz

Mirage 2000 The Dassault Mirage 2000 is a French multirole, single-engine, fourth-generation jet fighter manufactured by Dassault Aviation. It was designed in the late 1970s as a lightweight fighter to replace the Mirage III for the French Air Force (''Arm ...

and

SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force. Originall ...

. In 2010, the MCA programme was rechristened as Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme and a detailed feasibility study was launched by ADA. Although MCA was envisioned as a 15-tonne class fighter, the IAF's Air Staff requirements (ASR) for the AMCA, issued in April 2010 placed the now rechristened aircraft in the 25-tonne category. In October 2010, the Government of India allocated ₹100 crore to prepare feasibility studies in 18 months. In 2013, a review committee was formed, which on the feasibility study report recommended initiating the next phase of the programme. The Project Definition and Preliminary Design phase of AMCA began in 2013. From November 2013 to December 2014, 9 configurations of AMCA, starting from 3B-01 to 3B-09, were studied using

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

, low speed - high speed wind tunnel testing and radar cross section (RCS) testing and eventually by the end of 2014, configuration 3B-09 was chosen. In 2015, basic design configuration of AMCA was finalized and a detailed AMCA programme report was submitted to the IAF, which after review gave concurrence to the programme. The AMCA design after considerable refinements, has been accepted by IAF in 2016. The Project definition phase was completed by 2017. On 4 April 2018, Indian Defence Minister

Nirmala Sitharaman Nirmala Sitharaman (born 18 August 1959) is an Indian economist and politician serving as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India since 2019. She is a member of the Rajya Sabha, upper house of the Indian Parliament, since 2014. S ...

in a written reply to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

confirmed that the feasibility study for the AMCA programme has been completed and the programme would be completed in two phases viz, technology demonstration phase and full scale engineering development phase. The ''Detailed Design Phase'' of AMCA has commenced in 2018, as part of the phase, a full-scale model of AMCA will be developed for testing stealth features. The ADA is expecting to get government approval for the AMCA programme by the second quarter of 2021. ₹15,000 crore will be sanctioned for the program soon as per the latest reports. The first prototype of AMCA is expected to be rolled out by 2025–26. The current plan is to procure 7 squadrons of AMCA initially, first two squadrons in Mark 1 configuration, equipped with an imported engine and the remaining five squadrons in Mark 2 configuration, equipped with an uprated indigenous engine. The Mark 2 of AMCA would also incorporate sixth generation features and technologies to stay relevant in the coming decades. In 2015, 700 ADA employees were working on the project along with 2,000 employees of DRDO and 1,000 employees of HAL supported by over 500 employees of subcontractors of both Indian and foreign firms. Work on various technologies was carried out by multiple establishments of DRDO, ADA and HAL which included stealth, engine, three-dimensional thrust vectoring, AESA radar, internal weapons bay, serpentine air intakes and all other major avionics. According to Deputy Air Marshall Sinha "To provide adequate time to Indian industries to develop required capabilities, the armed forces will soon come out with a list of technologies of interest... underlining that these efforts are expected to synergise indigenous development of advanced aerospace systems." In 2015, as part of the

Indian MRCA competition The Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition in India, also known as the MRCA tender, was a competition to supply 126 multi-role combat aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF). The Defence Ministry had allocated at 2008 prices fo ...

Saab AB Saab AB (originally , later just SAAB and Saab Group) is a Swedish aerospace and defence company, founded in 1937. Headquartered in Stockholm, the development and the manufacturing is undertaken in Linköping. Saab produced automobiles from 194 ...

made an offer for participating in the AMCA programme. In 2021,

Mishra Dhatu Nigam Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (abbreviated as MIDHANI), is a specialized metals and metal alloys manufacturing facility in India, located in Hyderabad, Telangana. It is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), under the administrative control of Depa ...

(MIDHANI) started supplying

titanium alloy Titanium alloys are alloys that contain a mixture of titanium and other chemical elements. Such alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light in weight, have extraordinary corrosion resista ...

for

airframe The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospa ...

construction. Till August 5, 2021 five slabs of titanium alloy were already supplied to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The production of the alloy was done through the same technology, first developed by MIDHANI for crew escape system of

Gaganyaan Gaganyaan (Sanskrit IAST: ''gagan-yāna'', ) is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgrad ...

programme. HAL is planning to rollout first AMCA Mark 1 from the assembly line by 2027 which will form the first phase of production. From the second phase, integration of sixth generation technologies by DRDO will take place on Mark 2 variant. In an interview to The Financial Express on 22 October 2021, Air Chief Marshal

Vivek Ram Chaudhari Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari, is an air officer of the Indian Air Force. He currently serves as the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS). He took over as the 27th CAS succeeding Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria on 30 September 2 ...

confirmed that IAF is looking forward to AMCA aiming at sixth generation technologies. IAF is planning for two squadron of Mark 1 and five squadron of Mark 2 variant. There is also plan for a light combat aircraft variant of AMCA in future. Ongoing consultation happened in November 2021 between IAF, HAL, DRDO, ADA,

and

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Eco ...

as final design of AMCA prototype is getting ready for approval from

Cabinet Committee on Security The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) of the Government of India discusses, debates and is the final decision-making body on senior appointments in the national security apparatus, defence policy and expenditure, and generally all matters of Ind ...

(CCS). ADA is expecting CCS approval for AMCA in 2022. On 9 March 2022, the commencement of the manufacturing activities of AMCA was announced, starting with the

leading edge The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, ...

of the aircraft. On 17 March 2022, DRDO completed the construction of a 7 story building housing the research and development facilities for avionics and flight control system (FCS) of AMCA at

Aeronautical Development Establishment Aeronautical Development Establishment is a laboratory of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation. Located in Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karna ...

(ADE)

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Bharat Electronics Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is an Indian Government-owned aerospace and defence electronics company. It primarily manufactures advanced electronic products for ground and aerospace applications. BEL is one of nine PSUs under the Ministry ...

(BEL) is working with ADE and ADA to develop Digital Flight Control Computers (DFCC) for AMCA. On 13 July 2022, HAL launched the Metal Cutting for Titanium Bulkhead of AMCA as part of technology development at Aircraft Manufacturing Division,

Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashik ...

. DRDO initiated feasibility studies for retractable air to air refueling probe until 7 October 2022. AMCA will adopt an Articulated

Probe and Drogue Aerial refueling, also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to another (the receiver) while both aircraft a ...

System.

Design

Overview

The AMCA is a twin-engine, stealth supersonic multi-role fighter designed for the IAF. At present, the AMCA is planned as a fifth generation fighter but will integrate emerging, best of breed sixth generation technologies over time. The AMCA would be the first fifth generation fighter to enter service with the Indian Air Force. The AMCA is designed with shoulder mounted diamond shaped trapezoidal wings, a profile with substantial area-ruling to reduce drag at

transonic Transonic (or transsonic) flow is air flowing around an object at a speed that generates regions of both subsonic and supersonic airflow around that object. The exact range of speeds depends on the object's critical Mach number, but transonic ...

speeds, and a

stabilator A stabilator is a fully movable aircraft horizontal stabilizer. It serves the usual functions of longitudinal stability, control and stick force requirements otherwise performed by the separate parts of a conventional horizontal stabilizer and el ...

V-tail The V-tail or ''Vee-tail'' (sometimes called a butterfly tail or Rudlicki's V-tailGudmundsson S. (2013). "General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures" (Reprint). Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 489. , 9780123973290) of an aircraft ...

with large fuselage mounted Tail-wing. Flight control surfaces include leading and trailing-edge flaps,

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

s, rudders on the canted

vertical stabilizer A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, sta ...

s, and all-moving

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...

s; these surfaces also serve as Air brakes. The

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

features a single seat configuration which is placed high, near the air intakes and wings of the aircraft to provide good visibility to the pilot with a single bubble canopy. A

leading-edge root extension A leading-edge extension (LEX) is a small extension to an aircraft wing surface, forward of the leading edge. The primary reason for adding an extension is to improve the airflow at high angles of attack and low airspeeds, to improve handling a ...

(LERX), which is a small

fillet Fillet may refer to: *Annulet (architecture), part of a column capital, also called a fillet *Fillet (aircraft), a fairing smoothing the airflow at a joint between two components *Fillet (clothing), a headband *Fillet (cut), a piece of meat *Fille ...

, is situated on the front section of the intake and wings of the aircraft. It has a typically roughly rectangular shape, running forward from the leading edge of the wing root to a point along the fuselage. The aircraft features a

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

configuration. The weapons bay is placed on the underside of the fuselage between the nose and main landing gear. The AMCA is designed to produce a very small radar cross-section, to accomplish this it features “S-shaped” air-intakes to reduce radar exposure to the fan blade which increases stealth, uses an internal

weapons bay The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over th ...

and features the use of composites and other materials. The

flight control surfaces Aircraft flight control surfaces are aerodynamic devices allowing a pilot to adjust and control the aircraft's flight attitude. Development of an effective set of flight control surfaces was a critical advance in the development of aircraft. Ea ...

are controlled by a central management computer system. The AMCA will have some sixth generation characteristics such as an optionally crewed, directed energy weapons, capable of controlling UCAVs and swarm drones.

Stealth and radar signature

The AMCA design has inherent radar stealth, achieved through platform edge alignment and serration, body conformal antenna and low intercept radar, Diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI) with serpentine ducts which conceal engine fan blades, internal weapons bay and extensive use of composites in airframe. The airframe will use aluminium alloys, maraging and stainless steels,

Nitinol Nickel titanium, also known as Nitinol, is a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, where the two elements are present in roughly equal atomic percentages. Different alloys are named according to the weight percentage of nickel; e.g., Nitinol 55 and ...

and

Inconel Inconel is a registered trademark of Special Metals Corporation for a family of austenitic nickel-chromium-based superalloys. Inconel alloys are oxidation-corrosion-resistant materials well suited for service in extreme environments subjected t ...

with composite quotient at 38–40%. As of October 2022, designers are still in the process of refining the radar deflection capability of AMCA.

Sensors and avionics

The AMCA is expected to have distributed passive sensors with Artificial intelligence (AI) assisted multi-sensor data fusion to increase situational awareness and to work in tandem with the advanced electronic warfare (EW) suite onboard AMCA. The AMCA has a distributed processing system employing fast processors and smart subsystems. The AMCA will also have an integrated vehicle health monitoring system which works on sensor fusion. AMCA will be equipped with a larger and powerful variant of the Uttam AESA Radar which will use

gallium nitride Gallium nitride () is a binary III/ V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in blue light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. The compound is a very hard material that has a Wurtzite crystal structure. Its wide band gap of 3.4 eV affords it ...

(GaN) technology. It will be mounted on a mechanically steerable mount. An onboard

condition monitoring Condition monitoring (colloquially, CM) is the process of monitoring a parameter of condition in machinery (vibration, temperature etc.), in order to identify a significant change which is indicative of a developing fault. It is a major component o ...

system is also planned to be included in the AMCA.

Cockpit

The AMCA will have a glass cockpit equipped with a wide panoramic touchscreen display for enhanced man-machine interaction, a multi function display (MFD) placed in portrait orientation and a wide-angle holographic

head-up display A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD (), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view informa ...

(HUD). The AMCA will have hands-on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) arrangement with right hand on stick and left hand on throttle settings to ease the pilot workload.

Propulsion

The AMCA is to be powered by two

afterburning turbofan An afterburner (or reheat in British English) is an additional combustion component used on some jet engines, mostly those on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to increase thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff, and co ...

engines mounted side by side in the fuselage, fed by Diverterless supersonic inlets (DSI). The initial plan was to equip an uprated Kaveri engine developed for Tejas, but Kaveri engine programme was shelved due to sub-optimal performance. The AMCA Mark 1 will be powered by GE F414 afterburning turbofan engine, while AMCA Mark 2 would be powered by either indigenous or joint venture (JV) engine of 110 kN thrust. In 2015, ADA held a series of discussions with foreign engine manufacturers exploring the possibility of joint venture. As per

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

statement in

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

during Winter Session 2021, there is a proposal to jointly develop engine for AMCA with the help of foreign partner using the know how from Kaveri engine development programme.

Armament

The AMCA features an internal

for carrying missiles and standoff precision guided munitions in stealthy configuration, while also has provision for external hardpoints for carrying ordinance externally for non-stealthy missions.

Directed energy weapons A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include w ...

are also planned to be equipped on the AMCA.

Operators

;

– 7 squadrons (planned)

Specifications (projected)

''Specifications can vary as the aircraft is still in development. All the informations are based on available non-official sources - approximate and preliminary.''

References

Notes

References

External links

;Flight videos and photos:
Images of a model of the re-designed AMCA Fighter
at Aero India – 2013
HAL AMCA official video

BASIC FLIGHT SIMULATOR FOR AMCA
{{Stealth aircraft Indian military aircraft procurement programs Twinjets Mid-wing aircraft V-tail aircraft AMCA Stealth aircraft Carrier-based aircraft Proposed aircraft of India Proposed military aircraft

Development

AMCA Program

Design

Overview

Stealth and radar signature

Sensors and avionics

Cockpit

Propulsion

Armament

Operators

Specifications (projected)

See also

References

Notes

References

External links