old artical red in br post ....
Ran across this Feb, 2017 article. So, as a FYI:
Aviation Week :: Feb 23, 2017 :: India’s AMCA Fighter Targets Mid-2020s First Flight
BENGALURU, India—Preliminary design of India’s proposed Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) will begin in March, with a target of flying the aircraft in 2024 and making it ready for service as early as 2030.
As the defense ministry’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) awaits approval for full-scale development, an upgraded version of the General Electric F414 has become the likely engine for the twin-engine indigenous fighter.
“We have completed the configurations and the feasibility study, and proposed users are happy with them,” says an official involved in the project at ADA. The agency, part of the ministry’s Defense Research and Development Organization, has until now been working on concept design of the AMCA, presented in the form of a model in 2015, by which time the general configuration was frozen.
The decision on whether to launch the program is with the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a defense ministry official says. Saab and Boeing have expressed interest in helping with development. The ADA official says preliminary design will begin in March.
ADA is allowing at least six years between flight testing and entry into service, in part because of its experience in developing the Tejas light fighter, which needed 14 years of flight testing. Experience in verifying Tejas systems will support the shorter period for the AMCA, the ADA official says.
But the schedule is elastic. Although the official says the fighter will fly in seven years and be ready as early as 2030, the clock cannot start running until the government approves program launch. Another program source points out that the duration of flight testing is hard to predict. Further, ADA has shown a timeline that envisions a first flight in 2025 and serial production from 2036. The Lockheed Martin F-35A needed nine years of flight testing before it became initially operational.
The engine will be chosen soon, the ADA official says, giving no specific date. The choices are the Eurojet EJ200 of the Eurofighter Typhoon, Safran M88 of the Dassault Rafale, and the GE F414, used in the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, KF-X, Saab JAS 39E/F Gripen and the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) Tejas Mk. 2.
ADA sees advantages in choosing the F414, the official says, without elaborating. Two are obvious: experience working with GE in the Tejas program and the F414’s thrust.
ADA says the AMCA needs an engine of 110 kN (24,700 lb.), well above the ratings of the EJ200 and M88. The F414-404, installed in the Super Hornet, generates 22,000 lb. of thrust, but GE is offering an enhanced F414 that it says is in the 26,000-lb. class. GE also has remarkably rich experience in integrating the F414 and its predecessor, the F404, in different airframes.
Like most modern fighters, the AMCA will be a multi-role aircraft. Although it will be shaped for stealth, a non-stealthy version has also been planned. Features will include a weapons bay, serpentine engine intakes, thrust vectoring, modular avionics, integrated aircraft health management, and a radar with an active electronically scanning array using gallium-nitride technology. The aircraft is intended to fly supersonically without afterburning.
ADA proposes that AMCA will replace the Mirage 2000 fighter and Jaguar strike aircraft in Indian air force service. A carrier-borne version is also proposed. AMCA design work began informally in 2008 and became official in 2011.
The configuration has features that have become familiar on stealth fighters: apart from the weapon bay, these features include fuselage faceting, canted twin tail fins, edge alignment, and a forward-swept trailing edge of the main plane.
`“Everyone’s stealth fighter looks the same,” says an engineer who is in charge of designing another.
