Probably The Most Significant Take-Away From Aero India 2017

A few days ago, Livefist’s big update on India’s fifth generation AMCA programme brought the spotlight back on the concept fighter, amidst report of trouble in Indo-Russian talks to resolve the T-50/FGFA stalemate. On the latter front, things have reached a stage where some abrupt and spectacular suggestions have been made by Rostec, the Russian state holding company — including that the FGFA has nothing to do with the T-50/PAK FA (will be a totally separate fighter), and that Russia will be partnering with India on the AMCA. To be sure, there are several tech partnership suitors for the AMCA, and Russia happens for the moment to be only one of them.

Livefist’s update on the AMCA drew a huge amount of interest (and readership), unsurprising given it is one of two most ambitious active aviation efforts in the country — the other being the related Ghatak stealth UCAV. But while we were looking through the huge number of images we captured at the just concluded Aero India 2017 show, we chanced upon the above slide that we found tucked away in a corner of the small Defence Avionice Research Establishment (DARE) stall in the DRDO pavilion. While we’ve reported extensively on the AMCA’s serpentine intake architecture tests, the slide you see here is, in Livefist’s view, the most significant and revealing set of details on the deep research being done in perhaps the most challenging part of the AMCA’s design: active phased array technology, which comprises the spread of sensor elements embedded across the AMCA’s airframe in a way that consolidates overall stealth and lowers all aspects of signature, while making use of spread to provide a heightened degree of sensor coverage and domain awareness to the pilot.

Getting it right is non-negotiable. The 16 element linear and 32 element planar array will either segue smoothly into the functionality of stealth or stick out sorely and make the AMCA significantly more visible across spectra. While the AMCA is still in a design stage and awaiting sanction as a full-blown project, the slide you see here is affirmation that the most significant elements that will potentially make the AMCA a true fifth generation machine are deep in the works.

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via Live Defense