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The Chinese today are flying two fifth generation fighter prototypes, at least one of which will enter series production sometime in the next decade. It of course remains to be seen whether the Chinese J-20 design will ultimately be powered by a Chinese low bypass turbofan engine or not. India meanwhile is still haggling with Russia on work share and tech share issues before it inks the final development contract for the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) that will be based on the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA baseline. Regardless, it has been clear for some time now that India will have to mount a serious fifth generation effort of its own in order to both free itself from dependency on any other country as well build its aerospace sector on the foundation created through the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program. For that purpose the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) that oversees the LCA program has now increased the pace of activity with respect to the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program. However for the AMCA to reach fruition in a timely manner, the government of the day would do well to invest more in creating deeper aerospace development infrastructure.

The LCA program has taken the time it has to mature precisely because there was a hiatus in domestic fighter aircraft development post the HAL HF-24 Marut that was India's first homegrown jet fighter. No timely follow on programme to the Marut meant that both human and capital resources had to be built up concurrently even as the LCA program progressed contributing to delays. Today however via the LCA program India has a National Flight Test Centre to carry out flight testing with mobile telemetry stations, system design & evaluation facility for model based evaluations, a virtual reality facility to study assembly, accessibility and other related aspects, a lightning test facility and an explosive atmosphere test facility. However all this is not nearly enough for India to scale up its aerospace sector and take it to the next level.

For one, India is woefully short of wind tunnel facilities at the moment. Internal ADA projections reveal that as opposed to an emerging requirement of 8000 load outs a year, India has the capability to service only 1500 load outs annually through existing facilities. This lack of capacity is one of the reasons why the AMCA has had to undergo wind tunnel testing at the Calspan Wind Tunnel in the United States of America, before its final aerodynamic layout was frozen. Also, the dimensions of the current wind tunnel facilities at the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore, can accommodate only rather smallish models. Calspan's dimensions allowed larger models of the AMCA to be tested than what could be done at home it seems.

The AMCA is obviously larger than the LCA and is in the 'medium' category with a max take off weight (MTOW) of 25 tons. The fighter will have the usual roster of what is typically considered 'fifth generation' including obviously stealth, supercruising ability, an active electronically scanned array (AESA) fire control radar, thrust vectoring for super manoeuvrability, networked data fusion etc. and will allow modular construction.

The state of technology in what goes into making a fifth generation fighter is unevenly developed in India at the moment. Take stealth for instance, while Indian designers certainly know how to build a stealthy airframe in terms of pure aerodynamic shaping, Dr K Tamilmani, Director General (Aero), DRDO says that much work remains to be done in areas such as radar absorbent materials, conformal antennae and flush air data sensors etc. in order to achieve near all aspect stealth. In domains such as coatings that reduce exhaust exit temperatures, India has some experience having developed the same for the Advanced Light Helicopter program and more work is underway at IIT Mumbai.

Moreover, even as various aspects of stealth technology are being worked upon, the fact remains that the AMCA test vehicles will be powered by imported low bypass turbofan engines. According to Dr Tamilmani, an engine selection process is not just underway, but is actually being hastened. Six engine original equipment makers (OEMs) have been sounded out for what is essentially an upgraded & up-rated version of an existing engine that could provide 110 kilo newton (KN) of wet thrust. "The RFPs will be sent out by April 2015, and in another eight months we will firm up our choice of engine to power the AMCA," says Dr Tamilmani. "We however have to do a lot work on our own to develop thrust vectoring for the AMCA," he adds.

At the moment, the greatest hypothetical weight configuration of the AMCA design (with fuel and a certain weapons mix) has been calculated to be around 24.2 tons and ADA designers are confident that even with 105 KN engines, the AMCA would be able to meet design aerodynamic parameters. However given the experience with the LCA program, ADA this time really wants that 5 KN margin in order to be safe rather than sorry. It seems that the AMCA will also have an unusually large internal weapons bay that will have the capacity to accommodate around three tons worth of weapons. The AMCA will also feature six underwing pylons for externally carried weapons.

The total spend on the programme so far has been under Rs 100 crore. The project has been taken up on the basis of a preliminary staff qualitative requirement from the Indian Air Force (IAF) and is currently in the project definition phase. Dr Tamilmani believes that for around Rs 4000 crore it would be possible to build 3 or 4 flying prototypes, the first of which should take to the skies by 2020-21.
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final design is frozen.
hopefully they will show it this aero india in february 2015
 
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Retired Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, former Indian Air Force (IAF) head, faces a Central Bureau of Investigation chargesheet for allegedly diluting a single specification of the VVIP helicopter that India was buying.

In the Air Staff Qualitative Requirements (ASQR), the helicopter’s service ceiling was lowered from 6,000 to 4,500 metres. This made the AW-101 helicopter eligible and its Anglo-Italian manufacturer, AgustaWestland, bagged the euro 556 million (Rs 4,377 crore) IAF contract for 12 helicopters.

That violation, now under investigation, is dwarfed in the IAF’s purchase of the Pilatus PC-7 Mark II basic trainer aircraft (BTA), where at least 12 benchmarks were changed between March and October 2009, including some relating to pilot safety. These allowed the PC-7 Mark II, fielded by Swiss company Pilatus, to qualify and win an IAF order worth $640 million (Rs 3,780 crore) for 75 BTA.

Business Standard is in possession of the documents relating to this case. Asked for comments, the IAF has chosen not to respond.

The documents reveal that up to September 29, 2009, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) was indigenously developing 181 BTA for the IAF, dubbed the Hindustan Turbo Trainer–40 (HTT–40). On March 5, 2009, IAF laid down stringent performance benchmarks, dubbed Preliminary Air Staff Qualitative Requirements or PSQR.

These began getting diluted in September 2009, when the ministry of defence (MoD) permitted IAF to import 75 BTA through a global tender. Within days, the IAF issued a relaxed ASQR, in a document numbered ASQR 18/09. While the Pilatus PC-7 Mark II would not have met the earlier PSQR formulated for HAL, the new ASQR seem almost tailored for Pilatus.

Among the 12 dilutions Business Standard has identified, the most worrisome is doing away with the requirement for a ‘zero-zero ejection seat’. This allows pilots to eject even from a stationary aircraft on the ground (zero altitude, zero speed). The October 2009 ASQR does not require a zero-zero ejection seat. Since the PC-7 Mk II has ‘zero-60’ ejection seats, i.e. the aircraft must be moving at 60 knots (110 kmph), dropping the earlier requirement made it eligible for the IAF contract.

The PSQR of March 2009 required the BTA to have a pressurised cockpit, letting the trainee fly at altitudes above 15-20,000 feet. But the ASQR of October 2009 dispensed with this. The PC-7 Mark II has an unpressurised cockpit.

Also diluted was the requirement for good external vision from the instructor’s rear cockpit, a crucial attribute in a BTA. The PSQR of March 2009 mandated a field of view of ‘minus eight degree vision’ for the rear cockpit. The ASQR of October 2009 dispensed with it, specifying only, “the rear cockpit should be sufficiently raised to allow safe flight instruction”. The PC-7 Mark II, which does not meet the eight-degree specification, became eligible.

‘Glide ratio’ is another important attribute for a light, single-engine aircraft. The glide ratio of 12:1 specified in the March 2009 PSQR meant the trainer could glide, in the event of an engine failure or shutdown, a distance of 12 km for every one km of altitude that it lost. Which would enable a BTA flying at an altitude of five km to glide for 60 km, landing safely at any airport within that distance. But the October 2009 ASQR relaxed the glide-ratio requirement to 10:1. That is precisely the glide-ratio of the Pilatus PC-7 Mark II.

The ASQR of October 2009 also relaxed the requirement for ‘in-flight simulation’. This permits the instructor in the rear cockpit to electronically simulate instrument failures, training the rookie pilot to handle an emergency. The PSQR of March 2009 required this facility; the HTT-40 being developed by HAL also has these. The PC-7 Mark II does not and the relaxation of this condition made it eligible for the IAF tender.

Other relaxations that made the Pilatus trainer eligible include increasing the take-off distance from 700 to 1,000 metres and reducing maximum speed from 475 kmph to 400 kmph.

On Monday, this newspaper had reported (Indian Air Force at war with Hindustan Aeronautics; wants to import, not build, a trainer) about a personal letter earlier this month from Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, the present IAF chief, to Defence Minister A K Antony, asking for HAL’s trainer project to be scrapped and another 106 PC-7 Mark II trainers be imported from Pilatus, a purchase that will benefit the Swiss company by an estimated $800 million (Rs 4,750 crore).

Browne’s involvement with the basic trainer dates back several years. From March 2007 to May 2009, he was Deputy Chief of Air Staff (DCAS) at IAF headquarters, handling all acquisitions. Four months after he handed over to Air Marshal N V Tyagi (not to be confused with the former IAF chief, S P Tyagi), the IAF issued the ASQR, with the relaxations that benefited Pilatus.

Asked for comments, N V Tyagi told Business Standard the PSQR of March 2009 set unrealistically high standards for HAL to meet. These were lowered in the October 2009 ASQR because the IAF was going for global procurement. Lower standards would bring in more vendors and generate competition.

Says Tyagi, "The earlier PSQRs matched the performance of the Embraer Super Tucano, which many IAF officers considered a good trainer. But the IAF didn't believe that HAL could build such a trainer quickly. After a series of HPT-32 crashes (then the IAF’s basic trainer), it was decided in September 2009 to buy 75 basic trainers from the global market. Fresh QRs were framed in order to bring as many vendors as possible into the tender."

The question remains — why were exacting standards set for a HAL-built trainer lowered when it came to an international purchase?
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