Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) at Aero India: Single or Twin Seat?

[rashtriya.rifles]

can't be single engined if we are going with indigenous engines on it..

 

[Abingdonboy]

That actually has nothing to do with single or twin seaters, but with the capability of a fighter to gather long range radar data and divert them to other allied fighters via datalink. A single seat F22 flying in front of a batch of F15s for example could act as a mini awacs as well, by using it's radar and diverting the data to the F15s, which can remain passive then.

I was leaning more toward a twin-seat fighter being a more capable C&C platform for a air group.

I don't think that's correct either, when you look at the mix of squads in the USN, you will see, that they have dedicated single seat and twin seat squadrons, almost in the same number:

Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir, I've got a friend in the Royal Navy who has been trained by the USN on Carrier ops on a F-18 SH (because the RN has gotten rid of their own ACC and air group so they need to outsource the job to keep the skills there) and he has told me this is exactly how the USN operate. Yes there may be a balance of "Es" and "Fs" but this can be for operational or training reasons, it doesn't take away from my point.

 

[S-DUCT]

can't be single engined if we are going with indigenous engines on it..

IMO,we will mass produce indigenous turbofan engine after 2020
creating 200kn single turbofan engine would take atleat 25 years

 

[rashtriya.rifles]

IMO,we will mass produce indigenous turbofan engine after 2020
creating 200kn single turbofan engine would take atleat 25 years

maybe after 2030 .. not before that !!

 

[sancho]

I was leaning more toward a twin-seat fighter being a more capable C&C platform for a air group.

Because a WSO could take over the comand role, but the capability as said is only a technical issue, not a matter of single or twin seaters.

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

Despite a near frozen design, ADA isn't yet sure whether the fifth generation aircraft is going to be a single or twin seater!

The scale model displayed at Aero India 2013 was certainly a single seater, like the scale models displayed earlier at Aero India 2011 and Aero India 2009.

A pamphlet distributed by ADA at the 2013 show made no mention of the number of aircrew.



However, an animation video displayed during the show mentioned that the aircraft would accommodate a "pilot associate to reduce pilot work load."

LOL! he could have just asked someone at the ADA stall to clarify his doubts. He is taking Pilot associate as a real person that in reality will be a computer program, a more advanced version of care free handling with extra features added.

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

New Design For India's Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft

India has unveiled an updated design for its fifth-generation fighter concept, known as the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

Representations of the fighter have changed often in the last few years. But the scale 1:8 model of the concept displayed at last week’s Aero India 2013 show in Bengaluru is understood to be the final airframe and platform with which the program will proceed.

The twin-engine, stealthy, multirole fighter was first unveiled at the Aero India show in 2009, in the form of a metallic wind-tunnel model. At the show in 2011, a reshaped model saw its designers give it an F-22-like sensibility.

The final design, or at least the one the concept designers have put out this year, is strongly reminiscent of the Northrop Grumman YF-23 experimental fighter prototype that lost to the Lockheed-Martin led F-22 Raptor program in 1991.

The AMCA’s new fuselage is stretched, with symmetric trapezoidal wings, notably losing the leading edge extensions that were thought to be part of the design. The aircraft is to sport an internal weapons bay and fully indigenous stealth technologies under development, including radar-absorbent paint and composites.

That is the plan, at any rate. With the country’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program increasingly adrift ahead of a 2015 squadron service target, there has been skepticism within the Indian air force (IAF) about the pragmatism of committing resources toward an indigenous fifth-generation platform, especially when more than $10 billion will soon be committed to the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL)-Sukhoi PAK FA-based fighter program. But those concerns haven’t stood in the way of resources and funding flowing into the AMCA program and an elaborate wish list of technologies being lined up to define an aircraft that almost certainly won’t see a first flight before the next decade.

“Let’s be clear: the HAL-Sukhoi program isn’t a joint effort,” says an IAF officer with Bengaluru-based Training Command. “The airframe will be identical to the ones the Russians currently have in flight test. Our decision to go with a single-seat configuration is principally to avoid potential time overruns that will almost certainly be part of designing such a configuration. The maximum that HAL will do is insert a few systems of our choice and play lead integrator for the ‘MKI,’ if you will. Therefore, it is imperative that India look ahead and begin developing technologies and platforms like the AMCA. We cannot forever be a buyer of aircraft that are conceptualized, designed by others, and simply assembled or license-built here.”

A senior scientist at the AMCA directorate in Bengaluru says, “We have the fourth-generation Tejas on the one hand. But evolutionary technologies we are developing for the AMCA are on the cutting edge. They hope to be comparable with the best in the world. If we need a little help along the way in the interests of pragmatism, cost and time, we will study the feasibility of cooperation. But this ideally needs to be a fully Indian program. Sensitive stealth technologies will not be shared by foreign technology companies.”

A brief list of the ambitious technologies that India’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) hopes to equip the AMCA with includes a panoramic active matrix cockpit, triplex fly-by-light electro-optic architecture, serpentine air intakes to suppress radar signature and an optic-fiber-based digital flight control computer.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Infact that's a clever thing to do, not to tamper with a proven platform. But i do wish Sukhoi to introduce bubble canopy like F-22.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Infact that's a clever thing to do, not to tamper with a proven platform. But i do wish Sukhoi to introduce bubble canopy like F-22.

The production version of the PAK-FA will have a bubble canopy AFAIK.

 

[Ayush]

i think it should be twin.

 

[Speeder 2]

Indians seem to be convinced that 82+82=164.

 

[Jayanta]

AMCA is a distant dream...first finish the projects in hand. LCA-MK1 and MK2, Naval LCA...all running almost a decade behind...even A K Antony admitted it. Finish LCH, ALH, LUH...then get MMRCA contract and start manufacturing them....AMCA with be a card board model and power point presentation for another decade for sure. Looking at the track record of DRDO, ADA, HAL that too is optimistic. Imagine...GE-414 for LCA-MK2 was selected in 2008 and orders were placed in 2013...that should find a place in Guinness Book of World record ...

 

[scarcry]

Indians seem to be convinced that 82+82=164.

First get tech then talk;
Chinese copycat behavior is becoming a racist stereotype

 

[帅的一匹]

AMCA will be inducted no early than year 2030. Definitely IAF has no interest to wait it for so long. It's a good test bed for DRDO.

 

[rashtriya.rifles]

AMCA will be inducted no early than year 2030. Definitely IAF has no interest to wait it for so long. It's a good test bed for DRDO.

AMCA will be a cheap option to bring down some junks flying up in north