NEW DELHI: India’s ambitious fifth generation fighter aircraft programme will be executed by the Aeronautical Development Agency through industry partnership.
The Ministry of Defence on Tuesday said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) Programme Execution Model.
“The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) is set to execute the programme through Industry partnership. The Execution Model approach provides equal opportunities to both private and public sectors on a competitive basis.”, the MoD said.
They can bid either independently or as joint ventures or as consortia. The entity/bidder should be an Indian company compliant with the laws and regulations of the country.
The MoD called it an important step towards harnessing the indigenous expertise, capability and capacity to develop the AMCA prototype, “which will be a major milestone towards Atma Nirbharta (self-reliance) in the aerospace sector.”
ADA will shortly issue an Expression of Interest (EoI) for the AMCA Development Phase. ADA is an autonomous agency under the Ministry of Defence involved with the design and development of Aircraft for the Indian Armed Forces.
The AMCA is an ambitious project of ADA, which will be a 5th-generation indigenous fighter aircraft designed and developed as per the requirements of the Indian Air Force. AMCA will be incorporated with features like stealth airframe, internal carriage of smart weapons, and advanced sensors with data fusion among others.
As reported earlier by TNIE, the production of AMCA is planned to start after 2030. It would have capabilities of swing-role, close combat, and precision strike. The aircraft would be fitted with future missiles, standoff weapons, and precision weapons.
Only three other countries, the US, Russia, and China, have developed the 5th generation aircraft so far.
AMCA is a twin-engine medium multi-role aircraft having a weight of around 25 tonnes and a leap jump in technology.