A strike variant- foolhardy
I doubt this, considering that they have yet to make even a prototype.
China will probably get their hands on a PAK-FA, reverse engineer it, and call it J-something.
assuming that by 2025, a fifth generation engine with 175 kn is developed and manufactured for pakfa. china would probably be offered a customised version with 4 th generation engine like 117s in 2025 by the russians themselves.
Regarding the strike version,Whether you like it or not, russians will thrust such a variant on us, but it would most likely be a strike bomber like the su-34 is.
India on the other hand, would like to invest in MCA.
If current mmrca finishes as planned max at 126+64 and we buy a heavy fighter with state of art features in ew such as rafale with a active-cancellation capacity, there might not be pressing need for a fifth generation fighter till 2020, by which time amca would be in a stage tejas is in now. So a strike version of fgfa would be superfulous.
Even the present pakfa does not have all 5th generation stuff, its engines would reportedly take 12 years, aesa still 2nd generation . So fronting for fgfa numbers would be at the expense of both amca and kaveri engine. I'm not contemplating, but i feel Personally the Russians are devoted to the project to keep their export market share, which consists of jets upto 50%. Otherwise you can't explain them offering brazil partnership of 5th generation programme for 36 su-35 planes.
By my own understanding, I see Indian participation for technology and to field a fighter jet that would be hedge against possible chinese j-xx success. Military strategy when effectively based on our inert technological base strength would be a far better deterance than depending on foreign expertise. This has been proven time and again, even in contemperory modern India, the failure to develop gas turbine engine technology has put us in a difficult position of choosing a $ 10 million ej-200 with 50% technology that we desperately need or $ 4 million f414 with no critical technology.
Fielding soviet fighters during the cold war, though not making technical or strategic sense, at least made economic sense. Given the criticizm the Iaf now faces for not supporting home aircraft programmes then and complain lack of spares now, we cannot back a situation where in 2040, we dub fgfa as flying coffins, blind planes, or lacks this and that the service needs for operation in a situation like kargil but cannot be incorporated due to lack of know how, or worse IPR restrictions. We must learn to build on needs to establish capabilities. The economies of scale that can be attained in India given the enormous needs for aircraft the Iaf has is enough for a domestic manufacturer like Hal to establish themselves as one of the world's leading aircraft manufacturers. In an economic sense too,In a country like India where you have large pool of cheap labour to make a top class 4 th generation aircraft for $ 21 mil, buying engines for $ 10 mil erodes our competitiveness to others as well. The pakfa is now projected at $ 100 million and is being justified worth for a 5th generation fighter. By all means an Indian AMCA with features as advanced as the american raptor would cost a fraction of pakfa, if I had to quote a never exceed price in a clean configuration, it would be less than $ 45 million if completely domestic. Hence the fighter would certainly be even cheaper than any mmrca fighter. The AMCA with a domestic engine and radar (which would certaily be on par with that of pakfa radar, since both are second generation) can be highly effective against any potential adversary till 2040. I certaily agree that AMCA would have lesser range, payload, but, a domestic fighter would be flexible in numerous ways and highly adaptable to overcome any issues from the end user. Even a less capable domestic industry won't hamper our defence capability or preparedness, take for instance the french they have a combat fleet of nearly 300 combat aircraft, but it is backed by force multipliers such as awacs and tankers. Hence a rafale need not be within 200 km to track a target, an awacs can do that at a distance of 1000km while feeding the same to its fighter at a respectable stand off distance. Let us assume an awacs can track a 5 sq m object at 1000 km. Even the f-35 would be detectable at 500 km, from which the aggressor cannot deploy its bvr missiles. The f-22 itself could be tracked at around 300 km and be neutralised by a sufficient number of rafales. So military planning and execution on our own implied capabilites would be far more effective in a war scenario than counting on performance of top tier systems. If people still front for a foreign fighter siting insufficient Indian aerospace industry, it would be extremely short sighted, it took china less than 10 years to leap frog from 10 to 1 in the manufacturing index, but the foundation was laid in 1979. We laid the foundation in 1983 for our aerospace industry via lca. It would be foolhardy not to reap its benefits via the AMCA.