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India is on a Mission to Build a Stealth Fighter by 2025

The Indian Air Force’s delivery timeline is liable to change in the coming years as the project moves further along, but the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft is currently expected to make its maiden flight by 2025, with serial production to begin by 2028.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The effort is being led by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.


The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program has its roots in an Indian effort to modernize the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) stock of older fighters, including the SEPECAT Jaguar and Dassault Mirage 2000. The AMCA project has undergone multiple iterations, but the core requirement is for a stealth, single-seat multi-role multirole fighter.


In 2018, India withdrew from the joint Russian-Indian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) program to manufacture a new fighter based on Russia’s Su-57 fighter jet. Though the IAF had its share of concrete technical reservations with the FGFA—centered mainly on the Su-57’s stealth performance and the production challenges facing its bespoke Izdeliye 30 engineNew Delhi’s decision to withdraw from the FGFA program was not without its political context. Namely, the FGFA partnership gradually became a liability in light of India’s goal to build up its domestic defense industry as part of the government’s 2014 Make in India initiative.

The AMCA, then, is as much a technical project as it is part of New Delhi’s broader policy effort to reinvest in India’s defense sector. The effort is being led by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and is likewise slated to involve efforts from local contractors.


The details have shifted somewhat in the past decade, but here is where the AMCA project currently stands. As a fifth-generation fighter with “sixth-generation characteristics,” the AMCA will boast a very low radar cross-section for superior stealth performance, integration of certain AI-based systems for streamlined operation, and an advanced cockpit display with a touch screen interface. The AMCA’s avionics suite will be headlined by a large suite of advanced radars and electronic warfare systems.

The AMCA will also reportedly feature thrust-vectoring engines for superior maneuverability, an impressive feat considering all the other advanced technologies being packed into it. Little is known about the AMCA’s armaments, which reportedly will be carried entirely in an internal weapons bay configuration to maximize stealth performance and deep penetration capability. The fighter will feature Beyond-Visual Range missile targeting capability. In addition to the usual crop of air-to-air missiles, standoff weapons, and guided bombs, the fighter will also reportedly support directed-energy weapon (DEW) systems; it is unknown precisely what form the fighter’s rumored DEW capability will take.

The AMCA seems more similar to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet than to Russia’s Su-57 jet or China’s J-20 jet, in that it’s designed as a role-flexible fighter capable of executing a wide range of missions depending on loadout. The AMCA appears to be a complement rather than a replacement, for the IAF’s air superiority fighters, serving as a flexible force multiplier with superior penetration capabilities.

The IAF’s delivery timeline is liable to change in the coming years as the project moves further along, but the AMCA is currently expected to make its maiden flight by 2025, with serial production to begin by 2028.


Kion bilawajah apna mazak bnanay aajaty ho. TEJAS complete hoa nahi, abhi stealth k pechy lag jao. Sharam naam ki koi chez hai tum logon main ya nahi?
 
It is a stupid deadline, but then, we have a stupid government. Even if it is a delayed project, don't you think it is worth it, to try and make it on our own, without stealing industrial secrets and using screwdriver technology?

I can see that I am out of my depth, speaking to an aviation expert. Perhaps you are right, after all; with your knowledge and your experience, it is better that I should listen to you with the greatest respect.

Please go ahead and tell me all about wooden truck models.


;)

Doesn't matter. Kids will be kids. Youth must have its day.
Haha "kids". Let's hope you're not proven wrong by a kid then. But it's Alright Bro, let's wait until 2025 and move on. Tho i know what i'm saying. I may be new here, but certainly not to this area, and definitely not by experience and profession. Good day.
 
Which fighter jet did you make after independence, India will make Tejas in 30 years and AMCA in next 5-7 years, son Pakistan, what did you make after independence, you take China's retired jet in bailout, shame Pakistanis after May I point fingers at India,
 
I am not aviation expert but event if India make it up to 2027 it will be a achievement. India is different today what it was before 2010. India has strong leadership who has will and guts to do. Money is not a big problem, expertise is not a problem. Only thing needed is to organize every available resource including private players and It will be done.
 

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