The AMCA- a
technology demonstrator-based approach Prof.
Prodyut Das
8th
July 2025
The Government had
approved, as of six years ago, the PDV equivalent of Rs. 4000 crores to develop
a 5th, Generation combat aircraft locally known as the AMCA- advanced
manned combat aircraft. This was supplemented two years back by a further substantial 15,000 crores. Pace and precedents suggest it will not be “advanced”
by the time we have the aircraft.
The pessimism is
based on the available information. As with the Tejas ADA, the project leader,
is proceeding in the belief that if they sit in front of computers long enough,
they will get a good thing. It doesn’t work like that. That approach was tried
on the Tejas. Result? No one knows what aircraft we will get next month- let
alone next year.
It is stupidity to
repeat a process and expect different result. There will be no results because
ADA’s premises and doctrines were designed (not necessarily by ADA) to
not produce results.
An
understanding of the Historiography
Unsuccessful
leaders fail because they will not admit to the crucial role knowledge and
appreciation of engineering history plays in design. All your future pitfalls
are there in history if you have the humility to revere that History. The precis
of the precis is post war the US has steadily pushed for increased complexity
of weapons- not to win wars- but to;
i)
increase the profit.
ii)
destroy the competition.
And it has
succeeded. Fifty years of this tactics has resulted, that if one wants Western
equipment other than the US, there is only France, in entire Europe, that retains
the capability to sell an independent design- that too 4th.generation.
For 5th. Gen. there is only the US. In sum unnecessarily
overequipped = overpriced equipment, that too not quite to your needs, can be
had only from two or three vendors -may be all having a common banker- in a
seller’s market. This is of course the investment banker’s dream. The
complexity that was drummed as essential, was meant to kill off the competitors.
The complex,
rather. Over- complex weapons failure to win wars ( from Vietnam to present
day) was explained as due to “assymetric warfare”. How warfare remains
“assymetric” when indiscriminate slaughter of civilians is permitted as
collateral damage is not explained but the phrase is used to cover up the
failure of the over specified weapons.
Increased
complexity weapons that did NOT win wars was “barrage marketed” as “quality”
and that “quality” will win over “quantity”. There have been a thousand papers,
seminars, articles and presentations hosted on Bekaa Valley to sell that “quality”
triumphed over “quantity”. There has been no discussion in those same “think
tanks” on the more useful view of how with a very few simple upgrades the
simple MiG 17 could have swung the balance at Bekaa. This is quite apart from
the complete suppression of the fact that the results of Bekaa Valley the terrain
was the decider. Had Bekaa happened in Sinai the formidable SA 6 systems would
have been as devastating as before.
The pity is that
we ignore the economics and history and so fail to accept that we do NOT need to
follow a full-fledged, US style 5th, generation- especially not
after Sindoor. Sindoor, much to the alarm of the West, has confirmed both how
good we can be and stressed that we can rely on no one. We can, after debate,
do with a “cherry picked” 5th. Generation. For that a panchayat of
the knowledgeable is the first inviolable step.
The debate or panchayat-
does not occur in India because the “Industry” (HAL, DRDO, ADA and similar) lacks
the knowledge to tackle the Customer’s knowledge. We should re-examine the
specifications of the AMCA with a “zero based” approach i.e. start from fundamentals
and honestly describe the wars we expect to fight and get, a panchayat of
expert opinion as to the minimum AMCA that will do the job. A
significantly smaller lighter supply chain free AMCA, just as effective in our
limited non -expeditionary warfare scenario will happen without foreign engines
on Kaveri technology or clones of present production engines.
It is not funds, facilities and Raisina babus,
that causes our programmes to fail. It is that intense, knowledgeable building
of a technical consensus, the vital first step, which is fatal to miss
that we are missing. That was what happened with the Tejas and AMCA is
following in the same footsteps. The sly bypass of discussions and customer
objections in Tejas may not have been repeated in the AMCA but the lack of
knowledge and the mastery of the subject of the level required on the side of
the industry has not changed. The customer knows his problems. The Industry cannot elucidate the trade offs. The Labs lack the background required to help create
the specifications.
The need for
the Technology demonstrators
Unfortunately, the
US inspired specification is not the only brick the AMCA is going to drop.
Another brick begging to be dropped is by
trying to design a stealth aircraft without verifying and establishing the
necessary technology using “Technology demonstrators”. Let me here clarify,
that the TDs of the Tejas programme were NOT Technology Demonstrators. Honest TDs for the LCA would have been a HF 24 with a composite wing and a FBW. The idea of a prototype Tejas being labelled an TD was a very clever Scientist Babu’s ploy to get a fat project passed, because the proponents
of the LCA, as a group lacked the necessary domain knowledge to engage,
counter, learn and negotiate from the objections of a knowledgeable
customer. A vital process in the evolution of the design was missed.
Technology
demonstrators
Real Technology
Demonstrators are simple quick to fabricate specialist, short life aeroplanes
that are cobbled together using a maximum of off the shelf items and assemblies
to explore an area of concern to the Chief Designer. They are often in the X
category aeroplanes and are designed for data generation in a particular area
of lacunae rather than service so full equipment is never fitted and development and certification process are remarkably
short. Some examples:
1.
The
Saab SE 210 was a small (70% of full size) double delta designed to explore the
low-speed aerodynamics of the Saab Draken interceptor. It was powered by early
Bristol Viper engine of 4kN- compared to the 80 kN of the “real” Draken. Saab had
also produced earlier a TD for the earlier Lansen jet interceptor by fitting swept
wings to a Saab 91 Safir piston engine trainer of 180 hp for the same purpose.
2.
The
Concorde used two TDs to expedite development- a Fairey Delta 2 modified to
test out the ogival wing and the drooped nose visor and a purpose- built
Handley Page 115 to prove the theory of vortex generated lift, It was a
brilliantly simple design with a fixed undercarriage but allowed the designers
to make rapid changes to the wing L.E. profiles- being made of wood (pl. note
the appropriate engineering) and powered by a small Bristol Viper of
about 7 kN. To illustrate the jugaad approach I digress to cite the USSR
used a MiG 21 fuselage new wing combination for the TU144 SST aerodynamic tests. The Vulcan used two TDs to establish
Delta wing and intakes characteristics and Short SC 1 was used to explore Jet lift V/STOL.
The Germans had a whole slew of them. The History of TDs design is compulsory
for designers.
3.
People
say the computer can simulate many things that earlier needed TD s. This is a
partial truth and like all partial truths mislead those who trust. The
real bhakts of the Technology demonstrators are, of course, the US.
Earlier they used TDs for Aerodynamic validation; now they use TDs for concept
validation. They have an encyclopedic
range of such aircraft which is the basis of their vast data base and their
high success rate and the unerring
precision in programme management. You might look at their Rockwell MBB XF 31
and Northrop Grumann XF 40 Golden Eagle and pay your obeisance as examples of how
to use common sense, imagination, technology awareness combined with confidence
and hands on engineering to achieve stunning results rapidly and at low costs. The
US trove of technology demonstrators is their secret weapon in dominating the
Aviation scene and a model, to be paid the sincerest flattery of being
intelligently copied.
What I have tried
to point out is that a Technology Demonstrator is an easy to produce, quick
built aircraft to create a data base and it is not a diversion but a key stepping
stone to successful design. Perhaps like all simple things it requires a calm
mind and clear purpose in its design.
The AMCA
technology demonstrators
Actually, the AMCA
project needs perhaps four Technology demonstrators.
1.
A
tailless Horten type flying wing. Stealth is detectable and under doubt at the moment but the advantage of reduced RCS
will be always beneficial and “Robust” stealth will be the foundation of
all design for the foreseeable future.
The Horten type, for a given level of stealth
technology, has the lowest signature and the best range which is why may be
reason the Chinese have used that for their H 35. Fortunately, enough data
exists on the Horten XII design and the original was designed and built under
wartime disruptions in a period of 12 months i.e. easy to produce and easy
to modify.
The
Kanpur tailless Aura project is suitable and will at a pinch, do.
2.
A
weapons systems technology demonstrator.
This TD will develop and formalize the entire process of weapons integration in a stealth aircraft. The TD should be designed to take 4 weapons type: a IR CCM missile, a 23 mm calibre FF, a long range ASM and a BVR- against 4th gen. a/c through the entire process of weapons use in a stealth aircraft- from loading, sortie to a target at sea (i.e. featureless terrain), target acquisition, weapons firing and return to base. The actual make of the weapons- GSh, Magic, Aastra, Sea Eagle. Brahmos etc will be decided by the customer.
3.
Configuration
/Stealth intake technology
India
has a special “specification” need in the ability to change rapidly the sources
of supply of engines until our production base catches up. “Ponton” layouts,
engine “S” inlets, inlet meshes and their Icing etc need to be investigated.
Another is the need to go in for high bypass engines. They burn less fuel (
smaller aircraft) and have cooler exhaust.
Efficiency-wise
the present BPRs of fighter “Turbofans” are a joke. A 0,4 BPR is a hobby BPR.
BPRs engines used in civil airliners are the targets to aim for though one may
have to settle a compromise for something like 2:1 or 3:1. The HBPR turbofan
will result in significantly smaller overall dimensions. A TD, cleverly designed,
could test out the reduction in signatures due to “high” BPR turbofans.
4.
Polymorph
aircraft
This
means an aircraft where the skin is NOT the load bearing structure and a
quickly changeable skin can be attached to a load bearing understructure so
that the final shape can be optimized under actual consideration.
To those who have
not thought about it, three or four TDs may seem a lot but they save time and
money. That is the proven truth - 43-year-old programmes cluttering up the taxi
path with problems that should have been sorted out in the 1980s on TDs is the
biggest proof of what happens if TDs are used to pass projects but not uncover
and solve problems.
Why not the Chinese?
A genuine question is why did not the Chinese go in
for Technology Demonstrators? Firstly, we don’t know. If we coud hide our
Operation Parakram (the nuclear bomb test) they too could have hidden their
TDs. The other possibility? Have you noticed how frequently their agents get
taught stealing data? Beg, borrow or steal is the ancient dictum and the
Chinese just may have chosen the last. They have the data or most of it.
Unless our agents are even more clever and we have all the data I am sure the
AMCA will, just like the Tejas, spend decades correcting errors it can correct
now. Rectifying “blindingly obvious” mistakes caused by closed thinking has
been the reason for the delays in our projects.
Time scales
Going by
international practice the TDs should be ready for flying in 12 to 18 months.
The data generation – about 3-400 hours of flying- should take about a year. Is
it too late for the AMCA? The choice is this: After the AMCA is rolled out and flown
we will discover that the aircraft needs severe modifications to be
stealthy, or acquire the target, or launch the weapon or simply the stealth
degrades rapidly in service. We are in the realms of “Unknown Unknowns”. If we
go for intelligent (non-Babu) TDs at least the data required to speed up
rectifications will be well at hand in 2030 or whatever is the current promise.
Costs
The HAL HJT 36
Sitara was developed in a span of three years to full military standards at a
cost of Rs. 380 crores i.e Rs.1260 crores in Rs 2024 value for a set of 6
prototypes to production standards. Given the “home built” nature of TDs and
that they have a bare minimum of systems and NO operational systems and can use
“previously owned” equipment it gives us a good reason that to maintain that
costs will be modest. Perhaps about one third of the above for all three TDs.
Transparency
Our present
methods of reporting costs is the perfect way to obfuscate facts and hide
inefficiencies. This is perhaps necessary because we have a development process
where on occasions there is cognizable evidence that our development costs are
much higher than the US.
A first simple step
would be to adopt the US standard for project costing i.e.:
1.The project
costs should include the manpower costs. Presently it is not done in India.
2. All funds
granted over a period of time must be reported at present day value PDV and the year of that
calculations e.g. INR 2025 etc. declared.
There are other doubtful practices we follow but correcting 1 and 2 alone will be a good start.
Conclusions
Sindoor has hit a beehive in the West but we can tackle it. The
brilliance of Sindoor will mean many “hostile” reactions to continue the
curbing of our development of weapons. We can scrounge together a brilliant (for
our needs) 5th, generation using what we have. A long-range Intruder carrying hypersonic
ASMs to dominate the IOR is a tantalizingly close possibility but it will
require us to first arrive at a consensus rather than an “US” specification.
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