AMCA - Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (HAL)

gearedcombustor

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Interesting says it is 1.2mx1.3m and 12cm thick. They compromised on width and height but retained the thickness. This compromise means they will require more fasteners and more structural material and will have to compromise on internal space which F-35 couldn't on because they had weird requirements.
Thick enough as F-35.
Size is smaller than the F-35 variants which are 19.6ft x 6.5 ft
F-35 pic:
 

Anandhu Krishna

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India is not capable of making an engine suitable for AMCA. If India does not need RR, fine. Switch to talking to another company. Question is: is a French, US or Russian company going to give India a better deal tha RR? If yes, I suggest going down one of those routes.

Regarding foreigners taking an interest in Indian or US, Turkish, SK, Japanese, Russian or Chinese aviation projects - why shouldn't they?

I'm never going to be an uncritical fanboy of British aviation just because I hold a UK passport. I'm not that blinkered.

India is still in contact with france on the engine programme. Its just that the british jumped around in front of the media as soon as the conversations started. Maybe due to some domestic political reasons.
 

no smoking

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As for private companies costing more to develop whatever, that should not be the case. I imagine that PSU's are very inefficient and very unresponsive. Non-government owned companies should be able to do what PSU's do much more efficiently at much lower cost. = high profit while still cheaper for GOI, doesn't it? The other aspect is that when problems are encountered, the more able management and more flexible workforce one would expect in a commercial company should sort things more quickly so delays would be less severe.
It is not about who is more efficient, but who gets what!
When you bring the private companies getting into the military industrial, the condition is that these private firms must have the knowledge, technician team, equipment and infrastructures to do the job. The tech standard of these in military industries are generally much higher than the demand of civilian industries, most of private companies don't need these. So, in order to make them capable of military R&D, they need to upgrade their existing R&D & manufacturing department so even build brand new ones. This require huge investment (billions) in a short period time. On the other hand, the military equipment development requires long period work, this investment won't see any return for decades, worst of worse the majority of these development projects will fail at the end. This is a high risk field for anyone. For western countries, their private firms have been in this business for hundreds of years, they already amortized their investment over hundred years. Even so, today, they still need heavily subsidies from their government even though they have the whole world as their market.

For those new players in other countries, even in the countries like Japan, Korea, they are all only private in the name. It is run by privately, but the countries provide fund, tech, and guarantee their profit. You could say they are all running at financial loss actually every year.
 

no smoking

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External design won't change much,maybe internal maximum,things have been designed while keeping in mind.
That is because you only see the prototype. The major changes happen before.
The original external design is only based on the theory, unfortunately human's understanding about aerodynamic/stealth is still limited, most of time is based on experience not scientific systematic theory. So, in most of case, the prototype is different from the original design.
 

Spitfire9

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India is still in contact with france on the engine programme. Its just that the british jumped around in front of the media as soon as the conversations started. Maybe due to some domestic political reasons.
I don't think RR's actions have anything to do with domestic political reasons. It's not like it's been all over the news in the UK. Very, very few people people without a special interest in aviation will be aware that RR is talking to India about a military engine deal. It will become newsworthy if RR ends up getting a deal.

If both Safran and RR are talking to Indian representatives, that is good for India. Should be quicker to get a result than talking to one OEM followed by the other.
 

pipebomb

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Now I have been cooking some 'khayali pulao' which i would like serve here at DFI, interested members can indulge themselves.

If India has ambition to become a future global super power in next 3-4 decades single engine AMCA makes a ton of strategic sence and also some operational.

First let me shortlist operational gains :

i} Level of difficulty of designing and manufacturing a low bypass military jet engine increases with reduction in size. Simply because of tighter margins. Hence a bigger(f119 or izd30) single engine AMCA makes more sense.

ii} The financial input required for design & development of a smaller engine & larger one is more or less the same.

iii} Single engine aircraft has significantly lower operating and lifecycle cost.

iv} Single engine AMCA would also have higher export potential.

Now lets look at numerous strategic benefits

1] A larger engine would mean IAF can build their own heavy air superiority fighter like f-15, su-30, su-57, j-20 etc.

2] IAF could design a long range stealth bomber with four similar engines.

3] There could be a high bypass variant of this engine which would enable us to build c17 & c2 equivalent aircraft transport fleet.(then we will only need 1(c27j or il112v) instead of 4 types of foreign aircrafts in IAF fleet as we already have do228)

4] We could design Wide body civil/military aircraft(for eg a330mrtt, kc46 or an awacs)

These are all super power capabilities only in possession of us, former Soviet union & future china will possess . IAF with indigenous heavy fighter, home grown tranport fleet & a long range stealth bomber, home grown tanker and awacs fleet will secure our seat to the high table.

Also what this engine could do for our civil airline sector, to our manufacturing sector, our foreign exchange reserves.

This is the GOLDEN ticket to a truly atmanirbhar bharat.
 

pipebomb

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Now I have been cooking some 'khayali pulao' which i would like serve here at DFI, interested members can indulge themselves.

If India has ambition to become a future global super power in next 3-4 decades single engine AMCA makes a ton of strategic sence and also some operational.

First let me shortlist operational gains :

i} Level of difficulty of designing and manufacturing a low bypass military jet engine increases with reduction in size. Simply because of tighter margins. Hence a bigger(f119 or izd30) single engine AMCA makes more sense.

ii} The financial input required for design & development of a smaller engine & larger one is more or less the same.

iii} Single engine aircraft has significantly lower operating and lifecycle cost.

iv} Single engine AMCA would also have higher export potential.

Now lets look at numerous strategic benefits

1] A larger engine would mean IAF can build their own heavy air superiority fighter like f-15, su-30, su-57, j-20 etc.

2] IAF could design a long range stealth bomber with four similar engines.

3] There could be a high bypass variant of this engine which would enable us to build c17 & c2 equivalent aircraft transport fleet.(then we will only need 1(c27j or il112v) instead of 4 types of foreign aircrafts in IAF fleet as we already have do228)

4] We could design Wide body civil/military aircraft(for eg a330mrtt, kc46 or an awacs)

These are all super power capabilities only in possession of us, former Soviet union & future china will possess . IAF with indigenous heavy fighter, home grown tranport fleet & a long range stealth bomber, home grown tanker and awacs fleet will secure our seat to the high table.

Also what this engine could do for our civil airline sector, to our manufacturing sector, our foreign exchange reserves.

This is the GOLDEN ticket to a truly atmanirbhar bharat.
The main question would be is it too late.
 

Spitfire9

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Now I have been cooking some 'khayali pulao' which i would like serve here at DFI, interested members can indulge themselves.

If India has ambition to become a future global super power in next 3-4 decades single engine AMCA makes a ton of strategic sence and also some operational.

First let me shortlist operational gains :

i} Level of difficulty of designing and manufacturing a low bypass military jet engine increases with reduction in size. Simply because of tighter margins. Hence a bigger(f119 or izd30) single engine AMCA makes more sense.

ii} The financial input required for design & development of a smaller engine & larger one is more or less the same.

iii} Single engine aircraft has significantly lower operating and lifecycle cost.

iv} Single engine AMCA would also have higher export potential.

Now lets look at numerous strategic benefits

1] A larger engine would mean IAF can build their own heavy air superiority fighter like f-15, su-30, su-57, j-20 etc.

2] IAF could design a long range stealth bomber with four similar engines.

3] There could be a high bypass variant of this engine which would enable us to build c17 & c2 equivalent aircraft transport fleet.(then we will only need 1(c27j or il112v) instead of 4 types of foreign aircrafts in IAF fleet as we already have do228)

4] We could design Wide body civil/military aircraft(for eg a330mrtt, kc46 or an awacs)

These are all super power capabilities only in possession of us, former Soviet union & future china will possess . IAF with indigenous heavy fighter, home grown tranport fleet & a long range stealth bomber, home grown tanker and awacs fleet will secure our seat to the high table.

Also what this engine could do for our civil airline sector, to our manufacturing sector, our foreign exchange reserves.

This is the GOLDEN ticket to a truly atmanirbhar bharat.
What you say about a single engine might have made sense for AMCA but with 2 engines in 100kN-120kN class not only AMCA but also Mk1A, MWF, TEDBF and possibly ORCA could use perhaps 1000+ engines made in India over their lifetimes. That is an awful lot of foreign exchange saved.

Also if a monster Indian engine to power single-engined AMCA failed to arrive on time, what would the foreign substitute be?
 

sydsnyper

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Dont know if this is the right place to post this, but there is a new technology for powering jets. Ignore the first half, start watching from the 3:50 mark onwards.

 

pipebomb

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What you say about a single engine might have made sense for AMCA but with 2 engines in 100kN-120kN class not only AMCA but also Mk1A, MWF, TEDBF and possibly ORCA could use perhaps 1000+ engines made in India over their lifetimes. That is an awful lot of foreign exchange saved.

Also if a monster Indian engine to power single-engined AMCA failed to arrive on time, what would the foreign substitute be?
But it wouldn't have any of the strategic gains i listed, aircrafts like c17,c2, b1, tanker, awacs wouldn't be possible.

We could have used variant of f100 or al41 or even f135 for prototyping until our monster engine have arrived
 

MonaLazy

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only 1500kg internal weapons. Isn't it too low
Increase IWB capacity and lose range- it's a delicate dance. This must be what the customer wanted. Take off from Gwalior for a bombing run in Pakistan proper.
;)

Also contrast this with the F/A-18E's 6,667 kg with no IWB & F-35A's 8,278 kg. This sits in between.
 
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