A statement of the situation
If a combat aircraft cannot obtain a clear IOC within twenty years of start it will be overtaken by further progress. Our scientists cite lack of technology and facilities but the clear evidence is that the problem is localised to certain projects. The ALH, AWACS programmes indicate what is possible. The crucial Tejas and the simpler technology HJT 36 continues to be “work in uncertain progress”. Technology disparities alone do not explain the great disparity in outcomes. The Government should commission an analysis of different projects’ performances; the findings will help AMCA timelines which is already critical. Given the closer Government monitoring and that the Customer been taken on board ab initio means that in the AMCA programme there will be less insouciant flouting of dates seen earlier. Whether that alone will be enough is doubtful. The 2025 dateline for first flight will probably not be seriously overrun. Whether the performance objectives have been met will be clear only when the prototypes start to fly. By then, it will be too late to avoid delays if things need serious mending. This misgiving about the need for serious mending stems even from the scant “open source” evidence it seems ADA/DRDO and the higher direction of the project has not put to use the earlier lessons. ADA will once again use critical new technologies that it has not yet mastered- stealth, DSI intakes, and the design of the weapons release system in the stealth mode to name but a few. Mending mistakes on the prototypes, mislabelled as “Technology Demonstrators”, is time consuming as Tejas has amply demonstrated. The matters are not helped by the fact that the IAF DCAS Plans has issued a very challenging specification. The specifications are very good but will cause delays because of overreach; the fault of the specification lies in being “excellent” instead of “good enough”. The Raptors and J 20s need to be countered. Rather than “matching” specifications we should explore combinations of simpler airborne platforms with ground- based systems. This alternative, unacceptable for “expeditionary” war plans, is the only option for us. The final fear that we may repeat the history of infinite delays and depleting squadron strengths is that there is no parallel AMCA programme which run until the proposed AMCA takes off and trials show sufficient promise and reassurance, optimistically circa 2027. Insurance programmes e.g., the YF 23 to the F 22 and the Boeing YF 32 to the LM F 35 works out cheaper surer and faster. What happens if the AMCA needs massive corrections?
Timelines of the AMCA
The AMCA programme’s details are available on the Net and the following is a summary. The project studies were initiated in 2005 with official start in 2007 and the ASR was issued in 2010. The Project definition phase PDP was completed in 2013. There should have been several tens of alternatives examined but only known is a finless design-which was, perhaps mercifully, not proceeded with it being as ugly as sin. The layout finally chosen, a shoulder mounted rhomboidal wing design with a “chined” fuselage, twin engines with a matching rhomboidal tail and twin fins has a general resemblance to this genre of aircraft e.g., the Raptor/FC 31. The configuration was refined through studies 3B01 to 3B09 between November 2013 to December 2014. These studies were related to the checking out of area ruling, weapons bay details and similar basic project detail design rather than examining configurational alternatives. It was finally round 2019 that the AMCA began to emerge, barring minor irritants, as a reasonably competent looking aircraft.
The US timelines
The corresponding US ATF programme ran like this: One year (September 1985 to September 1986) for Request for Information from six companies GD/ LM/Boeing/Northrop/MD/BAe. These included aircraft proposals followed by immediate funding for two prototypes for the two winning projects in 1986. The data generated by the six proposals were pooled to refine the two finalist’s proposals who also collaborated with the “losers”- and first flights of both competing types was within five years i.e., 1990-91. In America the IOC, never suffixed or numbered, signifies the aircraft is fit to go war if required, happened in December 2005. Subsequent to IOC Raptor deliveries was 30 plus per annum. The production of 187 aircraft ended in 2011 i.e.,16 yrs. after first flight. The entire programme from RFP to finish of production of the 187 aircraft took 26 years. Eight decades since independence we have ignored the need for speed.
AMCA Predictions
We have taken sixteen years to do what the US did in two. If henceforth we match the Raptor exactly in pace of development, we can expect a first flight in 2027, IOC in 2040 and seven squadrons by 2047 i.e., 25 years from today and 40 yrs from first funding. 40 years for the Tejas and optimistically 40 years for the AMCA. What then has been the Tejas project’s “learning”? The Tejas created physical infrastructure and assertions of an aircraft development ecology. A corpus certainly has been created but medically it is “brain dead”. Between MoD, DRDO and South Block the cat has to be belled-a massive soul-searching, reorganisation, honesty and hard work and finally, a sense of purpose beyond personal foibles. Technology is not the problem; it is the “informed decision making with integrity” leadership that has been lacking.
Funding History
The Funding summary was 10 crores in 2007, 90 crores in 2009, 447 crores in 2019 and now 15,000 crores in 2021. Did late funding delay progress or the funding could be released only when ADA progressed is an important unknown. The progress we can expect of the AMCA depends on this “unknown”. Delay in funding can be corrected but slow rates of progress- requires significant changes in ADA itself. Circa 2018 i. e. eleven years -as compared to one year for the US -after the start of project studies the design was approved for Detailed Design Phase (DDP). This kind of delay makes one seriously wonder if there is a clerk in South Block whose life’s mission is to make projects obsolete before they even fly! “We do not have the Technology” is a refrain but should we make it worse by procedural delays? Having funded project studies in 2008 the DDP should have been funded by 2009 - or the project studies should not have been funded at all. If ADA design progress was too slow the work would be rendered obsolete and if funding was too slow, technology, requirements and concepts change and the work done is wasted. Perhaps to the project “babus”, aerospace administration was just another form of the MGNREGA. A funding of 15,000 crores with an aim to produce 7 squadrons worth of AMCAs has been released, 2 squadrons with the F 414 and 5 with a yet to be developed homegrown engine of 85 (?)/ 121 kNs each. There have been recent comparisons of the “huge” American funding versus ours. 80 to 90% of the development cost of a combat aircraft is the cost of trained engineering manpower which in America is horrendous -compare Boeing with HAL/ADA/PSU salaries - so officials quoting American cost of development to show how cheaply we may be getting the AMCA is evasive logic and that too of poor quality! Actually, American projects, considering their input costs, are economical, well managed and finally, profitable. Delays are quadrupling our costs.
Weakness of the review
One presumes that the views of the reviewers has been respected. The last time the then Chairman by-passed serious objections by declaring the unsatisfactory (to the customer, mind you!) design as a “Technology Demonstrator”- it was an administratively “clever” but engineeringwise fatal misstep. A serious re-engineering of the “unsatisfactory” proposal to meet the customer’s inputs may have “delayed” the project then by one two years, it probably would have shown up the serious deficiencies of confidence to engineer the changes needed, but it would have avoided much of the subsequent delays and the current and urgent need for the Mk1A and the risky Mk2- even before the Mk1 is in stable production. Why this correction was not done and the authority under which a “part time” person or a coterie could take such a decision needs to be re-examined because this decision was disastrous- for the IAF. The IAF had a stake, HAL had a stake, DRDO had a stake; what stake does a “multi hat” wearing IIT/IISc professor or secretary, both species “part time” have? A mechanism of non-accountability rather than enterprise allowed such liberties but there was no concomitant mechanism to review the decision let alone to hold people responsible, when committed dates began to be repeatedly missed. The cause of unacceptable delays in import sensitive projects like the HJT 36 and the Tejas need analysis because the lessons apply to the AMCA. In successful countries the critical decisions are taken by the industry/ people who finance the project and “own” the money; accountability and speedy implementation is automatic. In India who one knew mattered more than what one knew!
Technical Features
The AMCA has fifth generation features and is to be used as an air supremacy, strike, SEAD, EW roles and is viewed as a replacement for the Su-30MKI. The later versions will be having sixth generation features. The caution is that wonderful specifications by themselves are as useful as the paper license for a gun when there be tigers about. Some of the features of the AMCA are: Stealth, 3D thrust vectoring (at some future date), AESA radar, OBOGS, Internal weapons bays with the capability to house to two missiles and two SDRAMs, AESA radar, DSI air intakes with low RCS “snake” engine inlet trunking and the latest trends in a glass cockpit with all the usual concepts in terms of displays-MFDs, touch screens, voice inputs, sensor fusion coupled to MAWS, EW suite etc. The front fuselage from the radome to the first wing attachment point extensively use composites and even the fuselage formers in this region are composites- possibly to increase stealth in the frontal lobe. The intake ducts are labelled “stressed”. Whether the duct is stressed to withstand the usual ram pressure recovery or for giving structural rigidity is not known. If for structural reasons - two skins with supporting webs does make for a rigid “box”- though why this would be needed is not known. There would be a weight penalty. The centre fuselage wisely stays away from too much composites particularly for the areas of point loads- wing and undercarriage and I presume air brake attachments. Titanium is used in the region of the engines. Weight and CG control or the lack of it was the hubris and nemesis of the Tejas. Guarding against this will apply equally to the AMCA. The empty weight is given as 12,000 kgs. To achieve that the airframe weight has to be held below 4500kgs. If we add another 3000kgs for the two engines and its fuel systems and perhaps 700 kilos for the U/C the team have about 3200 kilos for all the rest of the systems- hydraulics, avionics, ECS, harness and plumbing, seat and safety etc. In a recent Blue Skies Podcast there was a surprising mention of a shortage of fuel tankage in the Tejas. The internal fuel is 2480 kilos but estimates show that despite the Tejas’ small size 2760 kilos could be possible. My belief is that an honest and thorough revision could make the Mk1/ Mk1A quite acceptable. The AMCA carries 6500 kilos of fuel. The smaller F 35 carries 25% more fuel. If the figures are right, it reflects poorly on the AMCA detail design. The physical details of the aircraft and its equivalents are placed in the Table 1.
Prospects
That the aircraft as specified will meet the threat is obvious. Indeed, it is my case that the aircraft is over specified and over capable and there may be simpler alternatives but that is for another piece! Taking the specifications as a given, what are the worrying signs about delayed induction into service? The Tejas lessons having been learnt there will be less of the delays the Tejas programme faced. Structural weights, systems performance, inlet trunking design, space for various items, weight and CG control, serviceability issues and a consequent host of elementary problems caused by the “on the job training” nature of early Tejas will not recur. Given the start of metal cutting a short while ago and the greater monitoring by the “owner” i.e., GOI/IAF, a prototype roll- out/first flight circa 2025-27 should be possible. We have eaten away all the fat that the 42 squadron Airforce of the 1990s afforded to the Tejas project. Similar delay with the AMCA will be fatal- for the IAF. It is in getting AMCA into service on schedule that I say, as marked in ancient maps, “Here be dragons!”
Portends of delay
One cannot put a finger on the sense of unease about development “subsequent to roll out” phase of the project but the portends are: The ADA has not shown the kind of “on the top of the job” expertise that is expected as a necessity. Open-source information is scant but I mention some disturbing symptoms: i) The initial models even as late as 2014 were showing a fin so “agricultural aircraft” that it could not have been stealthy. How could the project team even think of it -never mind that the Koreans used it! ii) The models displayed until recently showed air intakes with diverters when stealth is supposed to be a feature. DSI (Diverter less Supersonic Intakes) technology- sometimes called “Ferri” (after its inventor) intakeswas known in the early sixties e.g., Chance Vought F8U Crusader 3 and declassified in the 1970s. It was not used then because everyone wanted Mach 2 speed and that meant some form of variable geometry for the intake. With the F 16 the Mach 2 speed requirement became- “officially”- (i.e., appeared in US specifications) - passe, the DSI became both acceptable and superior being lighter, simpler and stealthier. By the time of the start of the AMCA project i.e., 2007 the DSI intake was common or garden variety of aeronautical schoolboy knowledge and a slew of fighters including the F 35 and the JF 17 were featuring it. The AMCA project models did not show this until perhaps 2017. DSI s are more demanding of surge and supplement “shuttering” and the released information shows nothing in this line. The point I am making is it is not enough that the DSI has been incorporated finally. The point is about the indifferent quality and tempo of the Project studies- “laboured” -in one word-progress indicate things amiss. iii) The other disquiet is about using unproven technology. The AMCA needs DSI (Diverter less Supersonic Intakes). I find it indicative of poor programme management that ADA has in 17 years has not converted or rigged up one Tejas prototype to prove the DSI and other stealth concepts and generate hard design data. The conversion for DSI did not require major effort or funds, it needed the right spirit. ADA has failed to take this precaution and if ADA luck does not hold-and it won’t because development is unforgiving of neglect- there will be massive redesign because the outer envelope of the fuselage may slightly change. iv) It is troubling to note that the full- scale testing of the radar cross section is yet to commence -the full-scale model was expected to be transported to Chennai sometime in August and of course the effect of ageing on stealth has not been mentioned. This was a problem which warranted priority tackling in detail before being integrated into the design. v) The design of the internal stowage systems of weapons is a key feature of the 5th generation aircraft. There has been no news so far on a technology demonstrator of this feature being flown.
Spirit and Credibility
Finally, it is a question of right spirit; The Tejas team took over 3 years from roll out Nov 1995 to start Taxi trials (February 1999). It was another 2 years thereafter for first flight (January 2001) i.e., over five years between roll out and first flight. It was painful to hear recently the ADA Chief publicly mention that it took two years to increase the A o A by two degrees. With that kind of “spirit” we can forget first flight by 2025-27. Examining the taxi trials, it will be noted that sanctions kicked in 1998. Was the aircraft at “roll out” in 1995 incapable of taxying under its own power until at least mid-1998 whereafter the sanctions may have caused delays? A thousand percent improvement in the above timings and the willingness to bite the bullet is now required. Crash-less development, an excuse worn out with overuse, is barren if the product becomes obsolete during development. Needing correction is also the poor kind of oversight, direction and advice provided by the “many hats” wearing bureaucrats and academicians “expert” committees which really should have fulltime professionals from the Industry and the Services i.e., people with a real stake in the issue, in the driver’s seat. What stake would an Academician or a Bureaucrat have when neither his promotion, posting nor pension would not be stopped if the project went into a tailspin. The generally realistic Indian Private Sector Industry expertise at the critical level was never sought. Based on open-source information what I observe is alarming. Perhaps my disquiet is a case of the homely saying “Singed Cattle will start at the sight of vermillion-coloured clouds”. It is already too late to correct the mistakes cited above, close monitoring by the Government and the IAF is now imperative if painful history is not to be exacerbated. The IAF cannot afford delays; it will, after making the right noises, import. To put it in short: Worry is the Designer’s best friend and it appears that ADA has not worried enough. If things go wrong and they will, we are in for a repeat of lengthy delays. Correcting mistakes on a prototype is time consuming. There was a need for real “Technology Demonstrators” before embarking on the AMCA. We have again missed that bus. The prototype may fly on time but development will be protracted because we have already courted some very avoidable risks. Now ADA needs to be very lucky.
Engines
The AMCA will be flown with the GE 414 but the desired engine will be a yet to be conceived engine of 125kN. This again is of a pattern with the HF 24/ B.Or.12 and the Tejas/Kaveri and we know where they led to which is why I wondered about that clerk in the South Block! As a rough estimate the AMCA will need at least 85- 90kN dry thrust from each engine. 85 kN dry is well above the “stretch” of the Kaveri or the 60/90 kN M 88 of the proposed collaborator. The full flowering of the AMCA therefore is subject to the successful development of the bigger new engine with foreign collaboration which will require major redesign of the fuselage. That is asking for trouble and delay!
Engine collaboration
It is a standard risk that the collaborator will use the collaboration to try out his riskiest ideas. He, irrespective of success or failure, gets the data and - if lucky- we get the product. If we are not lucky, we get a Sarasan interesting but fundamentally flawed configuration. Algorithms can perhaps be obtained from the collaborator but without caritas, without love, “know why” cannot be acquired There is also the proclivity of GTRE, presumably the chosen Indian agency for collaboration, to jump from one incomplete project to another, GTX/Kaveri and its appetite for “big” projects rather than doing what is needed- e.g., ignore the relatively low budget Orpheus dry thrust improvement in the ‘60s to go on chasing technical butterflies of a fixed nozzle A/B of doubtful service value. Developing an A/B without first fixing the “upstream” dry thrust issue first was “cart before the horse” wasteful and showed a lack of “common sense” and connectedness between developer and user. This trait is observed in other projects also. Then there was GTX and Kaveri which were left to flounder half-baked. The Government pressure in the cold Kaveri and the Marine Kaveri is welcome and has to be kept up or it may be “picnic money” again from the new 121 kN engine programme because without developing the Kaveri to full satisfaction GTRE will not be “spiritually” ready to collaborate with Safran/RR.
How essential is super cruise?
The AMCA, thanks to its need for internal stowage of war load in stealth configuration, needs a much larger cross section and supersonic drag is a direct relation to the aircraft cross section. The physical explanation is simple. Above M.0.8 the wing and the fuselage cross section begins to act as a “piston” compressing the air ahead of it and gives rise to the so called “supersonic drag rise” when in addition to the usual drags- profile, induced, skin friction etc we get “wave drag” something to the tune of double even between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.3. By knocking off the super cruise M 1.6 -M1.7 from the specifications the developed Kaveri can become a contender. “Aatma Nirbhar” weapons are the means of politics which the development team must keep in mind- it is his CPR as a chief designer. The HF 24 could go supersonic M 1.05 on 20kN engines the AMCA will need 85- 100 kN i.e. 400% more dry power to go 50% faster. Can “super cruise” to M 1.6 be degraded to allow the improved Kaveri as a contender? Focus on the Kaveri is a national need. If GTRE is too busy with advanced work -let a private sector consortium do the job with official funding. If we can get the Kaveri right, we will get the collaboration also right- if we still need it!
AMCA/Raptor/J20
Comparing the figures in the table 1 shows that the aircraft as specified is a reasonable one except perhaps the empty weight is “optimistic”- by about a ton. The lower specific fuel availability of the AMCA is to be noted. Should it come to a “dogfight” at low altitudes the AMCA should actually be slightly superior to the F 35 and the J 20. Without TVC, dog fight capability at altitude is zero. The “dog fight” ability of the J 20 at high altitude even with TVC would be quite poor. The greater length -some 4 mts-of the J 20 is noteworthy and the significantly greater fuel capacity indicates that the Chinese probably see the J 20 as a stealth “weapons carrier” intruder rather than a “dog fighter” which as a design approach is astute-even if it is Chinese! Incidentally the “radar signature” of the J 20 has come in for some derision but jubilation is unwarranted. Putting radar reflectors on the J 20s being observed by the IAF is exactly what Sun Tzu/ Dr. Fu Man Chu would do with a chuckle! Incidentally during their airshows in pre-covid times the Chinese ensured that the radar/IR and EM signatures were masked to the extent possible. There is much “common sense” merit in the Chinese approach. They have based their design on an existing TV engine which they (don’t we?) have in production; they will work from a firm base. Our approach on the AMCA with two different engine types will require us to re-engineer the airframe substantially when the new engine comes along; not the best thing to happen when the airforce needs numbers.
Re- examining the specifications
Do we really need the AMCA specifications of M 1.6 super cruise because without that we can use the Kaveri as a base; weapons are political tools! The Chinese and the US have those “specs” because they have the Technology. At this point we have neither the technology nor the need. Should we have a Raptor clone? The genesis of the requirements of the Raptor shows that it would be a case of overreach for our scenario. It endorses my view that it is the Government that should spell out our political war aims along with anticipated time scales and only then will the Services release the weapons specifications. Specifications should be tied to the political situation; In the case of the F22/23 the collapse of the USSR in 1989 saw a prompt revision of the F 22 specifications. High altitude ceiling, field length restriction, STOL and significantly, Mach 2.5 top speed, were waived all of which significantly reduced the challenges of engineering development. The Americans have a Global Strike Task Force (GSTF) comprising at one time around of 48 F 22As, 19 B2A Spirit and 56 B 52 bombers with necessary E3A surveillance aircraft along with associated tankers et cetera i.e., an aerial equivalent of the US Navy’s Carrier Group. The scenario in which the Raptor is supposed to operate is in the opening phases of the war when flying at extreme altitudes about 18,000mts. i.e., well beyond the capabilities of SAMs (many types of which lose KE and become sluggish at high altitudes) and knock out the opposition’s command and control centres. Once this air superiority is achieved the legacy weaponry and UAVs can the move in and destroy in detail. The F 22s specifications make sense only in context of an aggressive political scenario but it is also an expensive capability. Some of this capability is specified simply because the American Industry is capable of such tremendous abilities -never mind that their solutions are never cost effective. Such capabilities of course come at horrendous cost and the planned procurement of Raptors declined from 750 to 560 to 322 to 280 to finally in 2005 to 189 aircraft. I give the figures to underline that the cutbacks were hard fought; The USAF surely wanted them- at least 379- but the aircraft was unaffordable -and quite possibly not quite so “developable”- even for the formidable US Industry. So where do we stand with realising our air power needsespecially without an insurance programme? Our more pacific war aims- of defending home territory- requires us to neutralise the Raptor and the J 20s but not necessarily by dogfighting them. This can be achieved by a series of transportable low-cost groundbased systems and an aircraft much smaller and simpler than the AMCA. Specifications themselves do not win wars.
Speed (of development) is the need
There have been considerable selfcongratulations about technology development and creating a technological ecology. That is not visible so far. We always overcame technological challenges. The real issue is timely development with honest certifying -no FOC X,Y, Z etc-and productionising within twenty years. The Raptor development programme went from start to end of production in twenty-six years. If the F 22 had “failed” they had the F 23! Note well the most effective and ROI conscious aircraft development businesses in the world has always taken the precaution that it is cheaper to have TWO contenders for development funding. To rub it in, if this class of aircraft is so difficult to develop and so expensive to afford, what will be our own prospects? ADA’s capabilities, even after forty years existence, is more hope than certainty - and there is no back up and the Air Force is in bad need of numbers? What “think tank” and of what “hands- on experience” planned it this way and who hangs if there is failure with timelines? The Government as the financier and the IAF as the customer and the full time Industry as the “carrier of the can” must own the systems not “many hat”-ed part time amateurs. A recent DRDO monograph of the Tejas development recounts several incidents where appointed officials were reluctant to take responsibility and sign documents releasing the aircraft for the next step. Fortunately, there was always a dedicated someone else who stepped in. Unthinkable in the Private sector, the underlying lack of spirit is worrisome. Tackle the structural issues of leadership, the technology will take care of itself.
In Sum
Summing up: ADA in the AMCA design has not this time made any mistakes of the kind which any “School boy with the Observers Book of Aircraft” can point out but it has left too many loose ends; these will cause trouble, redesign and delay; brace and plan for it. The IAF and GOI must monitor the project closely and start a second project -may be with a different approach. The lack of an “insurance backup” project is going to be fatal for the IAF air strength and a bonanza for the import lobby. That clerk has ensured that our private sector remains a lowly Cinderella to the DPSU/DRDO/ DST sisters! By “stepchild” -ing the Private Sector we are at present using only the “socialist” half our capabilities and denying Aerospace the leadership and dynamism of the Private sector will provide. The Tejas took us forty years. If from now on the AMCA progress equals that of the Raptor’s it will be the same forty-one years as Tejas. We have to ask ourselves dispassionately what capability is it that we claim we have built which will deliverwithout significant and professional correction- the future projects? More importantly how can we inject that vital still missing ingredient X – the “soft, instinctive engineering design skills” that we have not been able to create? My “A change of tack” in Vayu I/2013 discusses the need for small, innovative short term “people building” projects may be of interest. For the AMCA team “We will show them” can be admirable as an attitude but it cannot be a plan. Now that we claim we have the technological base the Government/IAF has to see where the system repeatedly is going wrong in developing an aircraft to a time scale or accept that we are being dangerously complacent and look for “new think” solutions. Regarding the AMCA projects itself, the project is necessary but the warning lamps are on!
