The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has cleared the project worth Rs 15000 Crores to design and develop India’s fifth-generation fighter jet Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).
Notably, CCS is a cabinet committee of the Government of India that discusses, debates and is the final decision-making body on senior appointments in the national security apparatus, defence policy and expenditure, and generally all matters of India’s national security.
The AMCA will bring India among a select group of nations, which have developed a fifth-generation fighter.
As of now, only the US, Russia, and China have developed such advanced jets.
The project is under the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) under the DRDO and it will be manufacturing the prototypes of the aircraft. The manufacturing agency will be Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
Noteworthy, the CCS approval for the project has been pending for at least a year and a half.
The preliminary design review of the aircraft was over in 2022 itself.
According to the plans, the aircraft is slated to roll out of the hangar within three-and-a-half years of the approval and within a year.
After that it is slated to have its first flight.
AMCA Mk1 will fly on the existing 90kN class engine (GE 414 engines from the US) and AMCA Mk2 will be powered by a stronger engine of 110kN to be developed indigenously by GTRE.
Conceived in 2009 and being spearheaded by DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, formerly known as the Medium Combat Aircraft is basically an extension of the LCA project.
The program is undertaken to develop fifth generation fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy which will also include sixth generation niche technologies.
The design of the aircraft is carried out by ADA, the aircraft design and development agency under Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/fifth-gen-fighter-amca-project-gets-ccs-nod-9202191/
