The engine suppliers for the AMCA project are derived from two utterly unreliable sources: France’s Safran, which proposes to recycle their own M88 infrastructure for some late-stage salvage value, and America’s GE, which plans to subject their F404 series to yet another round of opportunistic recycling.
The so-called 'upgrades' are to be superimposed on top of these two legacy architectures—both of which are essentially dead-end fire-sale commodities with zero future prospects or practical utility within their own domestic militaries.
I spent a few minutes mapping and normalizing the thrust curves of these engines at altitudes of 0, 3,000, 6,000, and 12,000 meters, consolidating them onto a single, unified coordinate system.
The data is clear: except for a narrow envelope at medium altitudes where the French M88-2 can barely match the RD-33, it gets absolutely demolished by the Russian baseline across both spectrums—low and high altitudes alike. As for the F404... it is an unmitigated engineering joke.
If you are going to waste capital procuring these two defunct platforms, you would be far better off acquiring the RD-33 directly from Klimov and undertaking an indigenous modification program
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They are already writing rubber checks promising a fantasy thrust of 110 to 140 kilonewtons. Neither the French nor the British have even managed to deploy that level of performance for their own militaries, and yet they are somehow going to gift it to you as a 'dowry'?
And while we are on the topic of the illustrious French supplier Safran, just look at that 'exquisite' SaM146 engine on the SSJ100. Its operational lifespan turned out to be barely half of what was promised. The hot section—including the combustor and the oil sump, which were France's direct responsibility—consistently cracked under operational stress, and then Safran had the sheer audacity to cut off the parts supply entirely. Who on earth do they think they are?
The exact same structural nightmare reappeared on the Ka-62 helicopter as well.
As for GE... in just the past few days, the United States has launched attacks against three Indian cargo vessels right in the Persian Gulf. And the grand offense? These ships 'actually dared' to transport oil from Iran