Is India really capable of building a 5th gen fighter
India has been working on its own 5th generation fighter for quite some time now, but it seems far-fetched that India would be able to develop a fifth generation fighter, particularly since the country has primarily been a license manufacturer and has only one indigenously designed and developed fighter aircraft, the 4th generation LCA Tejas, which itself was plagued with delays and numerous other shortcomings.
However, some exciting developments have been taking place in the country that can change this situation in favor of India.
So let's take a closer look. Is India really capable of developing a fifth-generation fighter aircraft?
Before going any further let's first define what a 5th generation fighter really is, Although there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes as a fifth generation fighter, we can make an informed guess by examining currently operational fifth generation fighters, such as the F22, F35, and J20.
Typical fifth generation characteristics include
• Stealth along with the ability to store munitions internally.
• Supercruise i.e. prolonged supersonic cruise without the use of afterburners.
• Advanced avionics, like flight control systems, radars, electro optics etc.
• Networked data fusion and Advanced AI integration, enabling situational awareness on the battlefield.
• Superior build quality
Now let's see how many of the technologies, needed to make a 5th gen aircraft India actually possesses.
1. Stealth While no aircraft is totally invisible to radars, stealth makes it more difficult for conventional radars to detect and track an aircraft effectively, increasing the odds of the aircraft's survivability in hostile environments by avoiding detection by enemy radar and/or being targeted by enemy's radar guided weapons.
Aircraft stealth is a combination of passive stealth features such as geometric stealth, RAM coatings, and active stealth features such as Electronic Warfare Suites for electronic countermeasures etc.
As a result of the Tejas program, India has gained considerable experience in designing aircrafts, and given that the ADA (Aeronautical Development Agency), the main design agency in the country, has been working on refining the AMCA design for over 8 years, it would not be wrong to assume that India has the capability to design an aircraft with geometric stealth baked into its design.
DRDO (India's premier research organization) even displayed an internal weapons bay in Aero India 2023, a critical technology required for storing munitions internally and achieving geometric stealth.
2. RAM- Radar Absorbant Materials are an essential part of an aircraft's stealth as they absorb the radar waves and convert them into heat energy, thereby preventing the reflection of the waves back to the radar making it difficult for the radar to detect the aircraft. DRDO has been working on these RAM coatings with various Indian academia and private sector companies for quite some time now and recently showcased them at Aero India 2023.
3. Radar- Over the years India's Electronics and Radar Development Establishment has developed all sorts of radars, from 2D PESA surveillance radars like INDRA to GaAs based AESA radars for Netra AEWACS, showing India's expertise in this field. DRDO is currently working on a GaN based AESA radar called UTTAM Mk2 for its Tejas MK1A and MK2 aircrafts. An upscaled version of this radar is intended to go on AMCA. Currently the radar is in its final stages of testing and if DRDO officials are to be believed its performance surpasses the Isreali Elta EL/M 2052 radar used on Tejas MK1.
3. Flight Control Systems (FCS) are the components of an aircraft responsible for controlling the movement of the aircraft in flight along the three main axes (pitch, yaw and roll), thus making them a very crucial part of the aircraft's avionics.
Given the excellent track record of the quadruplex digital fly-by-wire Flight Control System of the Tejas and the experience DRDO gained during its development it won't be wrong to assume that DRDO has the expertise and capability to develop a state of the art FCS for the AMCA.
4. Electronic Warfare suite - While India has traditionally preferred to outright import electronic warfare equipment such as Self protection Jammers, Radar warning receiver, signal processors, IFF systems, Low Band Jammers etc things are slowly changing now as India's premier research organization DRDO has been slowly replacing various subsystems of the imported EW suite with indigenous ones for quite sometime now and finally has the capability to design and develop its entire EW suite all by itself.
While Indian EW Suite might not be as advanced as their western or Chinese counterparts due to superior hardware and better algorithms on their part but having an indigenious EW suite (called DARE Unified Electronic Warfare Suite) is quite an achievement in itself.
5. Production - Mass producing 5th gen fighters requires extremely tight tolerances and a highly optimized production process. Although India has been license producing fighter aircraft's since the 60s none were as advanced and complex as AMCA. It would be interesting to see whether Indian companies would be able to match those tolerances and properly optimize the aircraft production.
6. Sensors - Aircraft sensors of a 5th gen fighter are a highly complex systems, consisting of numerous components such as cameras, infrared sensors, Helmet Mounted Display (HMDS), electro-optical target system (EOTS), Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS) and other integrated technologies. These sensors provide the pilot with a heightened level of situational awareness by offering a comprehensive real time view of the battlefield, making them more accurate and effective in combat.
Although Indian companies and research institutions are working on many of these subsystems like infrared sensors, Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS), IRST sensors etc with significant progress there are still various subsystems such as Helmet Mounted Display (HMDS), electro-optical target system (EOTS) etc which India would need to import from friendly countries like Israel and USA due to a lack of local alternatives which could make the project costlier and could also compromise the security of the system.
7. AI algorithms and sensor fusion are fast becoming an important part of 5th gen fighters, as they reduce human intervention thereby allowing pilots to concentrate on other more important tasks which reduces their reaction time. AI algorithms also improve the accuracy and efficiency of the aircraft by performing tasks such as automated target recognition, flight path optimization, suggesting corrective measures to the pilot, etc. Moreover, AI allows for a deeper level of sensor fusion by combining data from multiple sensors like radar, infrared sensors, MAWS and Cameras in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the battlefield, which in turn allows for a greater level of situation awareness and more accurate decision making.
Judging by India's Massive IT Industry and number of research papers coming out of Indian educational institutes in the field of AI it won't be wrong to say that India has the expertise and capability to make advanced AI algorithms for its fighter jets.
8. A fighter is useless without its weapons, and since 5th gen fighters are used for air dominance and suppressing enemy air defences, they require special weapons that are low observable in nature and can be fitted into the fighter's internal weapon bay, so as not to compromise the aircraft's stealth.
India has already developed and deployed such weapons namely the Astra MK1 and ASRAAM BVR and WVR missiles for Air dominance roles and Rudram MK1 anti radiation missile for suppression of enemy air defences.
9. Jet engine arguably the most crucial part of an aircraft, Although Indian companies and research institutions like GTRE are working on jet engine technology they have failed miserebly. The Indian Kaveri jet engine program failed to achieve its objectives thus forcing India to import jet engines for its indigenious fighters from friendly countries like the USA making projects costlier and also compromising the security of the systems by making them susceptible to sanctions.
However not all hope is lost as India has been aggressively trying to form a joint venture with an established aerospace player to get hold of the technologies needed for filling in the technological shortcomings of the indigenous Kaveri program but for the time being AMCA will fly with a foreign engine namely the General Elecreic 414 afterburning turbofan engine
Although India has made remarkable progress in various technologies related to a 5th gen fighter, there are still some technological hurdles like jet engine technology India needs to overcome ,not to mention the archic delays and cost overruns defense projects in India face. However, it would not be wrong to say that with some outside help India has the necessary capacity, capability and resources to build a 5th generation platform, however will it be able to do so in a timely manner remains to be seen.
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