ADA AMCA - Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft

[Saaho]

In fact, EPE is a bad deal as it decreases the overall life of the engine and the mean time between overhauls considerably. People only look at thrust increase but forget it comes with significant downside.

Are you forgetting we use Russian engines? Their overall life is even worse!

RD-33 used in our Mig-29 has a overhaul period of less than 700 hours, in the best of cases.

F414 has a baseline overhaul period of 4000 (GE F414 Engine Deployed On F/A-18E/F; Potential Applications Growing | GE News). Even if it becomes half, it will be significantly higher than what our operational teams are used to.

I mean Chinese J20 has been flying with significantly worse engines.

 

[Saaho]

But the EPE is not proven, so it's unlikely ADA will use it for a development program, be it TEDBF or AMCA. It may become an option for production jets if the new engine fails. Particularly the CMC one, which I believe is what they are offering for the AMCA deal.

We have made deals with both the Americans and French, hundreds of F404/F414 (even LM2500) on one side and 62 Rafales on the other, so I can't tell which of the two will be our partner. And both have fallback engines for AMCA.

Look, the thurst class we NEED for AMCA does not exist in the market ( 70 KN dry/120 KN wet per engine; T/W ~ 11-12). So you either do an engine from scratch or build upon an existing engine with reputation for reliability.

GTRE are .... well, less said the better. So let GE deliver the engine. Hang more lolipops in front of them too. Remember GE =/= Boeing. They have their own goals.

 

[Ashwin]

Are you forgetting we use Russian engines? Their overall life is even worse!

RD-33 used in our Mig-29 has a overhaul period of less than 700 hours, in the best of cases.

F414 has a baseline overhaul period of 4000 (GE F414 Engine Deployed On F/A-18E/F; Potential Applications Growing | GE News). Even if it becomes half, it will be significantly higher than what our operational teams are used to.

The question is whether it will be deployed with the current Super Hornet, which it clearly will not. To develop the new derivative, we will need to make upfront investments in the billions. This is unlikely to occur as we are pursuing a clean sheet engine design with growth potential.

The past Russian engines that we used have no bearing on the future engine that we may use in the 2030s.

Look, the thurst class we NEED for AMCA does not exist in the market ( 70 KN dry/120 KN wet per engine). So you either do an engine from scratch or build upon an existing engine with reputation for reliability.

GTRE are .... well, less said the better. So let GE deliver the engine. Hang more lolipops in front of them too. Remember GE =/= Boeing. They have their own goals.

It clearly makes more sense to choose a clean-sheet engine with Indian intellectual property. It is always better to invest in Indian R&D capabilities in the long term rather than giving free cash flow to GE.

 

[randomradio]

You keep saying this but its not true. There is no engine upgrade in Block 3.

EPE isn't part of the B3, probably for a later block. Apparently, their engine upgrade decision is still pending. They have 1 program where they have signed a deal for 17 engines, to be delivered by 2026.

We have to see what they choose, 'cause they plan to operate the jets into the 2050s, so a new engine is necessary.

 

[randomradio]

Look, the thurst class we NEED for AMCA does not exist in the market ( 70 KN dry/120 KN wet per engine; T/W ~ 11-12). So you either do an engine from scratch or build upon an existing engine with reputation for reliability.

GTRE are .... well, less said the better. So let GE deliver the engine. Hang more lolipops in front of them too. Remember GE =/= Boeing. They have their own goals.

They do exist, but they are not in production. They are available in advanced stages of development. The French will be using theirs to power the SCAF demonstrator.

The hot cores of these engines meet our requirements. We will be combining that with Indian-designed cold parts.

 

[Saaho]

The question is whether it will be deployed with the current Super Hornet, which it clearly will not. To develop the new derivative, we will need to make upfront investments in the billions. This is unlikely to occur as we are pursuing a clean sheet engine design with growth potential.

The past Russian engines that we used have no bearing on the future engine that we may use in the 2030s.

This ideological attitude is the reason why LCA has been delayed like hell. We should make pragmatic decision. A bird in hand is better than 10 in bushes. Yes, your current situation absolutely has a bearing over what you will do in future. And yes, what your opponent's situation has a bearing too. China for instance has been using much much worse WS-10 and WS-15 engine on its J-20 planes. And even their latest and greatest engines have severe reliability issues.

Now coming to EPE, the changes are incremental and it was offered as a part of BLK 3 SH program. Now entire BLK 3 SH program was 2-3 billion dollars for some 70 odd planes. I doubt EPE program will be several billions of dollars. at 1 billion dollars for 70 planes that is additional 12-13 million dollars which will be high for what is essentially 65 million dollar plane. Most likely EPE will come in several 100s of million dollars. I will say it is a steal if it unblocks our AMCA completely and money well spent. Just ask them to throw some IPR bones to us. Or if we are letting them keep the IPR then ask for discount.

 

[Saaho]

They do exist, but they are not in production. They are available in advanced stages of development. The French will be using theirs to power the SCAF demonstrator.

The hot cores of these engines meet our requirements. We will be combining that with Indian-designed cold parts.

I will rather have a product than a science project. GE for instance knows what it is doing. You let the GTRE shit mingle with GE's work, it will be recepie for disaster. You will never know who *censored*ed up the shit.

Let GRTE reverse engineer engines and figure out how to make one instead of these chimeras.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

It says "up to" if the customer opts for it. Its a marketing page. USN did not go for it. The same is the case for CFT; it was offered but never chosen.

In fact, EPE is a bad deal as it decreases the overall life of the engine and the mean time between overhauls (MTBO) considerably. People only look at thrust increase but forget it comes with significant downside.

Boeing's proposal for the IN was quite clever: by increasing the thrust of the engines, the F-18 SH could carry 29,937 - 14,552 = 15,385 kg, i.e. more than the 14,500 kg of the Rafale. The disadvantages of too much thrust are greatly reduced if it is only used for take-off and only for safety, i.e. only if one engine fails. In these conditions, the real limit to the maximum take-off weight is that implied by the weight at which the aircraft can land, which is generally characterised by the payload it can bring back after jettisoning the drop tanks and evacuating the internal fuel by means of a vacuum, leaving only the safety reserves.

In the case of the F-18 SH, the Carrier Bringback Payload is 4491 kg, slightly better than that of the Rafale, but with this payload the F-18 is too heavy for the Vikrant arrestor system, whereas the Rafale, which weighs almost 5000 kg less empty, can land with its Carrier Bringback Payload without difficulty.

 

[Saaho]

It clearly makes more sense to choose a clean-sheet engine with Indian intellectual property. It is always better to invest in Indian R&D capabilities in the long term rather than giving free cash flow to GE.

Yeah, we thought same for LCA. And here we are. The prime lesson from that 40 year of cluster *censored* is this: DO NOT LINK AN AB INITIO ENGINE DEVELOPMENT WITH FIGHTER UNLESS YOU ARE USA. And even for USA, that is stupid.

India wants to develop R&D, spend money on it. No problem. But do not compromise the capability needed. Let Indian engines mature and be used as they mature.

Think about it: We went with Israeli radar for LCA. Now we have uttam and its derivatives. So we will upgrade Israeli radar with Uttam. Net result? LCA was not delayed by another 20 years and LCA was able to get AESA radar early.

Also, look for your benefit first without getting jealous about others. GE makes money from us, fine. We get critical piece, great. We have a plaform 5 years early, perfection!

The biggest problem of Indians and especially Indian beaurocrats is that they are penny wise and pound foolish. Here is another example of this methodology.

HAL LAST ordered F404-IN20s from GE in 2007.... Now they are ramping up the production of Tejas. And they are faced with slow down of production of F404-IN20s because we never ordered enough. We could have ordered inventory early in 2012 or so and we would not have run into this mess.

 

[vstol Jockey]

You keep saying this but its not true. There is no engine upgrade in Block 3.

F/A-18 Super Hornet

Boeing has developed the Block III Super Hornet to complement existing and future air wing capabilities. The upgrades have evolved to complement other U.S. Navy aircraft to effectively operate together in the air wing for decades to come.

www.boeing.com

The dry thrust is 17000 pounds. The wet thrust is 116KN.

In fact, EPE is a bad deal as it decreases the overall life of the engine and the mean time between overhauls (MTBO) considerably. People only look at thrust increase but forget it comes with significant downside.

This enhancement to 76/116KN has same hot core life of original F414-400 with 98KN thrust. They improved the materials and can easily increase the trust with a bit of higher RPM to 128KN. This very engine is fit to hit even 140+KN thrust levels with CMC core.

 

[Ashwin]

The dry thrust is 17000 pounds. The wet thrust is 116KN.

No, it is not operational or flying yet that we know off.

 

[vstol Jockey]

No, it is not operational or flying yet.

It is very much flying and was on offer to IN as well. But only two such aircraft are flying as of now as they are waiting for orders from the USN.

F414

www.globalsecurity.org

 

[vstol Jockey]

The present engine has a thrust boost of just 55% to the dry thrust while GE can easily boost it to 65% augumentation. That will need additional airflow to maintain same temperature margins. The dry thrust can be increased by either higher mass flow or higher compression ratio. The mass flow can be increased either by larger fan or higher RPM. GE can easily boost the CR to 35 and also increase the engine RPM to boost afterburner thrust to 65% augumentation without the need to increase the inlet size and in that this engine gets restricted 128KN thrust levels. Use of CMC core will need a slightly larger Fan and further increase in airflow. GE had proposed joint development of this engine with India. But it will still be a 4th gen engine without third airflow like ADVENT engine while Safran and RR have offered to develop 6th Gen engines.

 

[randomradio]

I will rather have a product than a science project. GE for instance knows what it is doing. You let the GTRE shit mingle with GE's work, it will be recepie for disaster. You will never know who *censored*ed up the shit.

Let GRTE reverse engineer engines and figure out how to make one instead of these chimeras.

We are good with cold parts design.

 

[randomradio]

Boeing's proposal for the IN was quite clever: by increasing the thrust of the engines, the F-18 SH could carry 29,937 - 14,552 = 15,385 kg, i.e. more than the 14,500 kg of the Rafale. The disadvantages of too much thrust are greatly reduced if it is only used for take-off and only for safety, i.e. only if one engine fails. In these conditions, the real limit to the maximum take-off weight is that implied by the weight at which the aircraft can land, which is generally characterised by the payload it can bring back after jettisoning the drop tanks and evacuating the internal fuel by means of a vacuum, leaving only the safety reserves.

In the case of the F-18 SH, the Carrier Bringback Payload is 4491 kg, slightly better than that of the Rafale, but with this payload the F-18 is too heavy for the Vikrant arrestor system, whereas the Rafale, which weighs almost 5000 kg less empty, can land with its Carrier Bringback Payload without difficulty.

How do you think the F-35C would have performed?

 

[Ashwin]

It is very much flying and was on offer to IN as well. But only two such aircraft are flying as of now as they are waiting for orders from the USN.

F414

www.globalsecurity.org

View attachment 32347View attachment 32346

Again, these are projection based on R&D. There is no production version. Will need lot of investment from any customer or USN.

 

[randomradio]

HAL LAST ordered F404-IN20s from GE in 2007.... Now they are ramping up the production of Tejas. And they are faced with slow down of production of F404-IN20s because we never ordered enough. We could have ordered inventory early in 2012 or so and we would not have run into this mess.

It's probably pandemic delays. Nothing to do with Indian orders 'cause there's enough because of other programs like the T-7 and T-50/FA-50.

 

[vstol Jockey]

Again, these are projection based on R&D. There is no production version. Will need lot of investment from any customer or USN.

USN funded the study and the result is F-18 SH Blk-3, already developed and flying. USN had wanted 20% thrust increase which GE has delivered for SH Blk-3.

 

[Ashwin]

USN funded the study and the result is F-18 SH Blk-3, already developed and flying. USN had wanted 20% thrust increase which GE has delivered for SH Blk-3.

It was proposed, engine update and CFT were removed from Block-3.

The Navy Has Received Its First Block III F/A-18 Super Hornets

Operational Navy squadrons are set to begin flying improved Block III Super Hornets by the end of this year.

www.twz.com

 

[Parthu]

An aircraft without DAS? What about radar, EW suite etc, which actually need the new engine?

The radar, EW suite (even IRST) on AMCA Mk1 will be iterative developments of what's being developed for Tejas Mk2. They don't need a next gen engine to power.

That's the limit of the software, not the hardware.

It's both. MAWS for example cannot zoom in on a target to perform ID as it lacks the required lenses.

DAS can.

What do you think MAWS is?

What do you think it is?

There's a reason MAWS are classified as part of self-defence suite by the USAF, whereas EODAS is classified as a Sensor system in the same breath as the main radar.

MAWS perform a similar function as RWR, except it watches for a different signature from the enemy (missile plumes instead of radar waves). That's all.

'Cause the Rafale's stealth is different from AMCA's

Rafale has no stealth. Having an SPJ system does not make it a stealth aircraft. It helps it evade incoming threats is all. It doesn't do anything to hide you from threats to begin with.

AC requires for your aircraft to be scanned by the enemy long enough for you to figure out their signal & how their freq-hop algo works. For a system that deploys defensive aids, that's fine. From a stealth PoV, that's useless.

It's not our own engine. And we are not gonna do that unless AMCA's engine fails. You are basically arguing my point.

If we develop a stealthy nozzle, we're going to apply that tech on every stealth platform we operate.

We don't need to mess with the engine to change the nozzle.

It's not up to them. Dassault's hoping for SCAF's failure. The Super Rafale is their replacement.

They're not the ones facing PLAAF. And the only way they'd even be facing the Russians is with the USAF by their side (Russia has to plough through half a dozen NATO countries to get to them).

France can even make do with Mirage-2000s if they wanted. But our requirements are far more intense.

We cannot do without a low observable airframe like AMCA.

You just have to deal with the main beams of all these radars, the number of TRMs don't matter. 5000 TRMs can be split into 5 main beams, ie, 5 radars. So, based on how much power reaches the aircraft, the Rafale has to respond only with that many TRMs. So if the power necessary is 50 W, then 5 TRMs producing 50 W in total is enough. With GaN, it gets even better, maybe just 1 is enough.

You'll be dealing with combined power amounting to several kilowatts hitting you in a modern battlespace. But that's not even the most egregious problem.

You cannot transmit two frequencies from the same TRM at the same time. Out of a 1000 TRM FCR radar, if even a main beam comprising 400 TRM is hitting you, it's scanning you in 400 frequencies, regardless of how much power is reaching you, you still need to transmit back those same 400 freqs, just out of phase.

For a podded jammer like NGJ, this is not a problem because they don't need to tailor their output to the incoming signal - they just raise the surrounding SNR high enough that your radar return is lost. But doing this is not stealthy and home-on-jam solutions exist. To do this stealthily you need to transmit a signal in all the freqs the enemy is scanning you in, while taking care not to leak anything in a freq he's not transmitting.

A typical AESA-based EW emitter like the ELT-568 we installed on our MiG-29UPG has about 15-16 TRMs per module on each side. With 4 transmitters (2 in front, 2 in back) that's about ~60 TRMs (but they can't all look at the same target, that's besides the point). That's a maximum of 60 frequencies at the same time.

SPECTRA's emitters are roughly the same size as the ELT-568. It cannot transmit in more than a few dozen frequencies at the same time. The other frequencies will be able to see Rafale just fine.

It's like trying to stop the wind with your palm.

It works against old doppler radars or even missile seekers, but modern AESA FCRs are too tough & too smart.

All that is already known. Once they know what they need, ie, RFP, companies work out designs and proposals and ADA gets to choose the best design. ADA is not choosing blind. It's a competition.

Notional concepts exist. Nothing is set in stone as far the next-gen engine design is concerned.

You cannot risk the entire future of your Air Force on a notional concept. You have to move ahead with a proven engine in the meantime - which is what IAF is doing.

The final production design, maybe 2 years. But that's not necessary.

How easy do you think it is to design a new engine from scratch? It's not just drawing lines on a paper you know, every step requires R&D - especially when it's going to be the first next-gen engine in the world that can natively start at Himalayan altitudes.

Yes. But it's limited to the technologies decided for FOC. The engine is not a factor 'cause it's not definitive. Meaning they are not expecting the Mk1 to supercruise or have full stealth.

F414 is the definitive Mk1 engine.

Okay, but we need 200. If those 36 keep coming in batches, then Dassault will produce it on their own in India 'cause they then get to make more profit. 20% cheaper, they say.

Trappier has said they need a minimum 100-jet order at one go in order to justify setting up local production. That's not happening.

The IAF didn't make such a concession even for LCA. Any standard F414-equipped AMCA bought in numbers more than 40 is because the IAF wasn't allowed to have a choice. And the IAF will not use these AMCAs for what they were intended to, they will rely on the other 200 Rafales to perform OCA. They will be forced to use AMCA as a semi-stealth strike jet with limited capabilities, worse than today's Jaguars. The LCA Mk2 will likely perform better.

First, Rafale was better than AMCA Mk1. Then Su-30 was better than AMCA Mk1.

Now Tejas Mk2 is better than AMCA Mk1.

What's next? MiG-21 Bison is better than AMCA Mk1?