ADA eyes 2032 flight for twin-engine deck based naval fighter

The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) eyes a 2032 take-off for an indigenous Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF) aircraft that the Indian Navy would be looking for if the Union government approve construction of more aircraft carriers in India to cater to the growing strategic needs of the Indo-Pacific, where China is flexing its muscles.

“A proposal to develop more than 100 TEDBF is before the Cabinet Committee on Security. Once approved, ADA aims to fly the TEDBF by 2032,” ADA Director-General Girish S Deodhare said at a press conference on the sidelines of Aero India on Tuesday.

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The twin-engine single-seat carrier-borne fighter aircraft has been designed for operations on-board Indian Navy’s aircraft carriers and envisaged as a possible replacement for the Russian origin MiG-29K that takes off from the decks of INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant.

Deodhare said the TEDBF’s preliminary design was complete and work on the 26 tonnes naval fighter with a maximum speed of 1.8 Mach was set to accelerate.

Another proposal to make 140 (seven squadrons) Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is also before the CCS. “It would take a minimum of 10 years for the AMCA to fly from the day of CCS approval,” Deodhare said. The fifth-generation indigenous stealth fighter will be a twin-engine one with a swing-role capability.

On the LCA-Navy, he said trials were going on-board INS Vikrant, and the performance of the aircraft would be evaluated after the trials were over.

Uttam for LCA

The DRDO is looking at integrating its Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar Uttam into the LCA platforms in two to two-and-a-half years. B K Das, DG, Electronics and Communications Systems, DRDO, said the transfer of technology has been completed and the production line was being firmed up by HAL and LRDE.

“We have developed, flown and tested Uttam in all classes of performances – including for weapon classification and tracking. It has been outperforming all contemporary radars,” he said.

Underlining DRDO’s work across domains including radars and electronic warfare applications, Das said India was establishing itself as a self-sufficient producer of these systems and was also ready to export its products.

M Z Siddique, DG (Naval Systems and Materials), DRDO, said the agency’s laboratories have fetched “very good results” with the stealth technologies that are set to be key drivers in India’s plans for its fifth-generation fighter aircraft. He said the results were significant in efforts to translate research on the four broad verticals – acoustic, visual, infrared and radar – into a product framework.