Taxiing in: India's stealth fighter

It’s a leap of faith for us,” said a senior Ministry of Defence (MOD) official on October 1 — a day after several of India’s largest private sector arms manufacturers joined a race to develop and produce the prototype of a stealth fighter that would be the country’s first. The bid to become the development-cum-production partner (DcPP) for the prototype of the advanced medium combat aircraft (Amca) pits them against public sector aerospace giant Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The very fact that the Adani Group, Kalyani Group, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), and the Tatas were among private players vying to build a combat aircraft — that too a hard-to-build stealth platform — marks a departure from long-standing convention. The ₹15,000 crore Amca programme marks the first genuine opportunity to challenge HAL’s long-standing monopoly as the country’s default domestic manufacturer of combat aircraft. “There’s a lot of interest (from private firms), but let’s see how it goes,” said the MoD official. Any private sector company chosen for the job, however, will face a novel challenge: As former HAL chairman and managing director (CMD)C B Ananthakrishnan noted: “Manufacturing aircraft, especially fighter jets, is an entirely different beast altogether. It cannot be compared to building even most land and naval military platforms.” To top it, the fifth-generation Amca is unlike any fighter jet India has built. Like others in its class, it has been designed from the ground up for stealth — aircraft that are able to evade enemy sensors, including radars. This is enabled through a combination of a specially contoured airframe, the use of radar-absorbent materials and structures (RAM and RAS), and the internal carriage of weapons in a bay located on the underside of the fuselage. Its sensors and the manner in which the information they gather is fused and presented to the pilot will also constitute a quantum leap over the Tejas family of indigenous light combat aircraft currently produced by HAL. Only the United States (US), Russia, and China have so far operationalised their own fifth-generation fighters. While a great deal of the research and development that went into the Tejas has informed the Amca programme, this knowledge represents only the tip of the iceberg when set against the overall complexity of the target platform. “The Amca will be an entire generation beyond even the Mark-2 (Mk2) variant of the Tejas,” said Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari (retired). The Mk2 is a 4.5-generation upgrade —heavier and equipped with sensors often found on fifth-generation platforms—and will be the most advanced version of the Tejas. Prototyping for the Mk2 is underway at HAL. The former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief emphasised that stealth will be an essential capability for the IAF. “While the IAF’s existing platforms were able to strike targets deep within Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May, only a stealth platform will be able to achieve similar results against China’s dense air defence environment and its anti-access and area-denial capabilities,” he explained. Stealth will also be crucial given the proliferation of high-performance, long-range air-to-air missiles in the subcontinent. The IAF is likely to induct seven Amca squadrons, totalling 126 Indian-made jets. “The Amca will have to bring all the capabilities that we expect from a fifth-generation jet, and we won’t have the time for a prolonged development process. We need to accelerate to a finished product as soon as possible,” he added. This is the challenge that awaits all contenders, but especially the private firms, which have entered the race without the benefit of HAL’s eight decades of experience. Incorporated as Hindustan Aircraft Ltd in 1940, the company has built a vast repertoire of licence-produced foreign platforms — ranging from World War II-era propeller-driven fighters and bombers, to the British de Havilland Vampire jet, the Soviet MiG-21 supersonic fighter, and the Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole air superiority aircraft. It is also manufacturing the Tejas jets, although a delay in meeting the original February 2024 deadline to begin deliveries of the Mark-1A (Mk1A) variant has drawn sustained criticism from the IAF.