Future of IAF from LCA to AMCA

After making of LCA Tejas, India is now planning to develop it’s own 5th Gen Fighter Aircraft named as AMCA (Advance Medium Multirole Aircraft). So here I bring to you a small but detailed analysis of the AMCA program.

It was late 90s when the government of India decided to develop it’s own indigenous fighter aircraft named Tejas. But due to some reasons the Tejas program got delayed for more than 20 years and the jet that had to be inducted in the early 2000. It has now started it’s production in 2020. HAL and ADA was criticised for this and several questions were raised on the capabilities & efficiency of HAL. This criticism was not just on the delay of LCA Tejas but the main reason for this criticism was the failure of the Kaveri Engine program.

Most of you are not aware of the fact that the Kaveri engine was initially planned to be integrated on Tejas but due lack of technology GTRE failed to develop Kaveri engine and hence Tejas was then fitted with the GE-404 engine from USA. Even today we are not able to develop Kaveri engine. Several initiatives were taken by GTRE to revive Kaveri engine but it failed again. Developing jet engine is not an easy game unlike rocket engines as it’s comparatively very compact in size & it requires advance engineering to develop it’s crystal blades technology & maintain it’s thrust to weight ratio & that’s what make jet engine technology one of the most complicated technology. Other than United States not even countries like Russia, Israel, China, Japan & Germany are able to make a efficient jet engine of their own.

Being very optimistic and looking back I think we have definitely moved far ahead. We have learnt a lot from development of LCA Tejas which is probably India’s first indigenous 3rd Gen fighter aircraft. HAL has gained a lot of experience and developed a lot of new technology that is helping HAL in developing AMCA, it’s own 5th Gen aircraft.

Unlike the LCA, AMCA is being made by the Public & Private sector collaboration. Companies like L&T, Mahindra Defense, Reliance Defense & TATA are working along the ADA & HAL. Different research and Development labs through out the country are working on this project. Different IITs and other national Institutes are also working on AMCA.

Few international companies like the Rolls Royce & Safran have shown interest in joint development of the AMCA specially in the joint development of a new jet engine for AMCA and this is the main reason why HAL is so excited about AMCA as it’s going to have the western standard engine technology packed with European Avionics, Israeli Radar and many indigenous weapon system.

What are the challenges in front of IAF

IAF need to have at least 42 Squadrons to deal with two front war scenario with Pakistan and China. Currently we only have 32 Squadrons which makes this scenario more challenging for IAF. So here are few things that Government of India must take under consideration.

We should not spend more time and money on LCA now as Tejas was designed to replace the Mig-21s from IAF but this program was delayed for 20 years & now indication of Tejas as a replacement of Mig-21 does not makes sense as within 10 years the technology of Tejas will become outdated. So it’s better to not buy more than two squadrons of LCA Tejas.

India should fast track the MMRCA project to buy additional 112 fighter Aircraft & it will be better to go for the Rafale only as we had already paid a lot of money to Dassault to give Rafale with Indian specific enhancements now rather then putting money on programs like Tejas mk-2.  Going for Rafale will be much better option economically & strategically. IAF needs at least 120 more Rafale under fast procurement.

India has to fast track joint venture with Rolls Royce to develop a new turbo fan engine that come with the 3D Thrust Vector capabilities and could generate Dry Thrust of at 75KN & After Burning Thrust of 130KN for super cruising AMCA.

MiG-21s were inducted in IAF in 1961. Since 1961 the MiG-21s are serving IAF. Several upgrades were done on MiG-21s from time to time according to the requirements. It was a MiG-21 which shot down the Pakistan’s F-16 in the air engagement of 27 February but in today’s reality MiG-21 is a vintage aircraft also called a flying Coffin. It’s time for IAF to retire the entire fleet of MiG-21 and introduce a new fighter jet in IAF of medium weight category as it’s very essential step to revive falling strength of the IAF.