yes it would be a major re design of tejas... what do you think ?? am i adding small changes to make it silent eagle.. this is as good as what has happened to F-15.. this would be more valuable than AMCA.....
A Silent re-design would be far more valuable for IAF, with FGFA and AURA coming, but for LCA as a platform, such re-designs simply would be too complicated and hardly doable. MKI or Rafale offer more space and potential for such changes, Rafale will have CFTs in future and Dassault is already working on a weapon pod similar to the Silent Hornet, the MKI already carries fuel internally and imo has the potential to carry either a weapon bay on the centerline station, or weapon pods at the wingstations.
A single engine AMCA is really good idea.
It would be even better if it shares power plant with FGFA.
It definitely would be a "logical" approach, to ease and simplify an AMCA development, but as long as we (our industry) tend to develop every nut and bold alone, that sadly is not going to happen. But when you look at it logically it could go like this:
Requirement:
IAF gets FGFA and AURA, IN has no 5th gen aircraft, so logically they need an AMCA more than IAF need it and why the requirement for a 5th gen carrier fighter is higher than for another fighter for the air force!
What we have:
We already have the N-LCA tech demonstrator, which gives us base experience and knowledge in navalising a fighter and possibly valuable input for a new carrier fighter design.
We have reasonable know how of modern materials and coatings and can gain a lot from design and techs of FGFA!
We also have access to NG avionics or weapon developments, through access to foreign partners!
What we need:
5th gen fighter design will be a problem for us, based on the issues and problems we already have in various aircraft developments. Therefor design assistance of a foreign partner is crucial, be it of a Russian, or a western partner.
Our own engine development for a 4th gen fighter failed and improving it to be used in a 5th gen fighter will be to ambitous and risky again. Simply using a version of the type 30 engine of FGFA, that HAL will produce in India anyway, would be the most logical choice. One could think about going the Swedish way and develop an "own" engine, based on a foreign one (Volvo RM12 with around 60% parts of the US GE 404, similarly Kaveri K-X engine, based on X% of the type 30).
If we get catapults for IAC 2, we will need a foreign partner that has experience with developing fighters for this aim (Dassault, Boeing and now LM would be the logical choices)!
So all in all, the plan must be to base such a development as much as possible on what we already have from LCA/N-LCA TD and what we get from FGFA, or even through MMRCA, while all new development parts should be done with foreign partners (HALBIT displays, Samtel-Thales IRST or HMS, BEL-Thales/Rafael for an internal LDP, naval design with Dassault or Boeing as a partner, NIIP as a partner for the AESA radar development, based on FGFA's radar...).
The power plant should be based on M-88 2 producing thrust of 11,000 KG.
Not sure if such a big jump is even possible from the current 75kN, not to mention if that would give a useful balance between thrust and fuel consumption. But the biggest issue here is, that we would just add another twin engined fighter, which makes it more costly again.
