– Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: To counter Pakistan and China at same time, India is aggressively working on its fifth generation advanced multirole combat aircraft (AMCA). India’s fifth generation fighter plane project is being developed by the HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) at very Rapid pace and Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Aircraft Research and Design Centre (ARDC) who are developing the aircraft.
According to the timeline, India had started this project in 2010 and the project commenced from February 2013 and ended in March 2014. This project was put on hold for some time when the Aeronautical Development Agency had focused on Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas.
India had started the Engineering Technology work and Manufacturing in 2014, the conceptualisation was done till 2015 when the general design was frozen after extensive wind tunnel testing. Project entered a detailed design phase (DDP) in Feb 2019. The first prototype is reported to be unveiled by 2024 & the first flight is scheduled in 2025.
A senior Indian official admitted that the project will face similar technology and knowledge transfer challenges as FGFA, because ‘no nation is willing to share its stealth technology’ with India.
AMCA will be a single-seat, twin-engine, stealth all-weather multirole fighter aircraft with the indigenous active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. In 2018, $60 million was allotted for prototype design and R&D.