India has approved a design and prototype program for a fifth-generation fighter jet intended to counter the growing asymmetry in air power with China.
India’s ambitious plan for its Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) received a significant boost on March 7, as the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approved a long-awaited proposal for its development.
“The Cabinet Committee on Security has cleared the project to design and develop the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft fifth generation stealth fighter jet project to be undertaken by the DRDO,” Indian News Agency Asian News International reported.
Initial costs for the AMCA project are estimated at approximately $1.8 billion, ANI reported Indian government sources as saying.
FlyingDaggers45SQUADRON/Wikipedia Commons
The AMCA program aims to boost India’s ability to counter its increasingly assertive neighbor China’s advanced fleet of aircraft.
China’s J-20A is considered a fifth-generation fighter, with about 200 of the jets already in Beijing’s arsenal.
Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi for comment for this article.
India has joined an exclusive club of nations capable of developing fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft, which includes the United States, China and Russia.
The country’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), in collaboration with the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and with support from private companies, is tasked with building prototypes of the AMCA.
“Our objective is to produce five prototypes within four-and-a-half years and five years, by 2028–2029. That is our timeline.” an official from ADA told open-source intelligence research firm Janes on March 11.
The ADA, a lab under India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has spearheaded the AMCA’s development since 2008, Janes reported.
“The 25-tonne twin-engine aircraft, which will be bigger than other fighters in the Indian Air Force inventory, will have advanced stealth features to avoid detection by enemy radar,” newspaper Indian Express reported on March 10.
Krishna Rajendra Neeli, project director of AMCA at ADA, emphasized that the aircraft would match or even exceed the capabilities of other fifth-generation stealth fighters globally, Indian Express reported.
India and the U.S. are set to collaborate on developing the engine for the AMCA.
“The AMCA Mk1 variant will have the US-built GE414 engine of the 90 kilonewton (kN) class, while the more advanced AMCA Mk2 will fly on the more powerful 110kN engine, which will be developed indigenously by DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) in collaboration with a foreign defense major,” Indian Express reported.
This engine will be developed by DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment in collaboration with U.S. firm General Electric, underscoring New Delhi’s growing defense technology collaboration with Washington.
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