India's 5th-gen stealth fighter jet project takes off: Rajnath Singh okays AMCA project

This comes more than a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, green-lighted the AMCA project, sanctioning Rs 15,000 crore to design and develop five prototypes.

New Delhi: Amidst reports of China supplying its stealth fighter jets to Pakistan, the Defence Ministry on Tuesday approved the “execution model” for the long awaited Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme, setting in motion a government-backed scheme to design, develop and manufacture fifth generation fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The approval puts Bengaluru-based Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) as the lead organisation to execute the programme with industry partnership – be it in the public sector or private.

The government’s go ahead comes more than a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, green-lighted the AMCA project, sanctioning Rs 15,000 crore to design and develop five prototypes.

“The execution model approach provides equal opportunities to both private and public sectors on a competitive basis. They can bid either independently or as joint ventures or as consortia,” a defence ministry spokesperson said.

The official said the bidder must be an Indian company compliant with the laws and regulations of the country.

Fifth generation fighter aircraft have better stealth, superior sensors for improved situational awareness and ability to super-cruise when compared against their fourth generation counterparts.

Globally there are four such fifth-generation aircraft – F-22 Raptor and F-35A Lightning-II from the USA; J-20 of China and Su-57 from Russia. In addition, China is working on a carrier-based 5th generation aircraft (J-35A) and there are unconfirmed reports of a Chinese 6th generation fighter too.

“The MoD approval is an important step towards harnessing the indigenous expertise, capability and capacity to develop the AMCA prototype, which will be a major milestone towards Aatmanirbharta in the aerospace sector. ADA will shortly issue an Expression of Interest for the AMCA Development Phase,” the spokesperson said.

Following the recent India-Pakistan conflict, there are media reports of China fast-tracking the delivery of its stealth combat jets to Pakistan, but none of the countries have said anything officially.

The approval by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh opens up the programme to big private companies like Tata, L&T and Adani putting up a challenge to the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd that virtually enjoyed a monopoly in aircraft manufacturing for decades.

A Tata-Airbus consortium last year opened up India’s first private aircraft manufacturing unit at Vadodara to produce C295 transport aircraft for the IAF to replace its ageing Avro fleet.

HAL, on its own, has been working on an AMCA prototype since the last few years with the company top brass claiming that the home-grown fifth generation fighter will take the first flight by 2028 and the aircraft would be ready for induction by 2034.

The first two squadrons of AMCA are to be powered by the GE-414 engines while the subsequent versions will be flown by a made-in-India engine, whose development would be taking place on a parallel track.

India’s home-grown Tejas Light Combat Aircraft was developed under the supervision of ADA where HAL has been manufacturing the LCA for the IAF.