The Fifth Generation Aircraft: HAL Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft

Jet Fighter, also known as Fighter Aircraft, is a military aircraft which is mainly designed for air combat against other aircraft. The main features of a fighter aircraft are speed, maneuverability, and relatively small size which is beneficial for air combat. Since World War I, Jet fighters have been part of air combat in conventional warfare.

The fighter aircrafts are piloted by individuals with an engineering background who are required to write entrance exams like AP EAMCET. In this article, we are going to particularly discuss fifth-generation jet fighters. In late 2005, the Fifth generation jet fighter was launched by the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor.

In this generation, the only fighter jets that are combat-ready are:

• Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor with United States Air Force
• Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II with the United States Marine Corps
• Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II with the United States Air Force
• Chengdu J-20 with People’s Liberation Army Air Force

There are various other fifth-generation fighter jets that are in testing and development by experienced engineer graduates from Good engineering colleges in Karnataka. Namely; Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II, Sukhoi Su-57, HAL AMCA, TAI TFX, Shenyang J-31, and Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin.

There are few common features of fifth-generation fighter jet possess. They are Stealth, High Maneuverability, Advanced Avionics, Networked Data Fusion from Sensors and Avionics, and Multirole Capabilities. To reduce the radar cross-section, fifth generation fighters use chines instead of the standard leading-edge extensions and lack canards. All the fighter jets have twin canted vertical tails which also reduces the radar cross-section.

Most of these aircrafts are highly maneuverable which is achieved by thrust vectoring. Another measure taken in these aircraft to reduce radar cross-section is having internal weapon bay but they all have external hardpoints like fuel tanks on their wing for non-stealthy applications. In order to reduce RCS and weight, all the fifth-generation fighters have a high percentage of composite materials.

Currently, India is developing a twin-engine single-seat layout with a diamond-shaped planform fifth-generation fighter called the HAL Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft which is being developed and designed by Aeronautical Development Agency and is being produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

Pre-approval design on the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft started in 2008 and the official development started in 2011 and the aircraft was completed in 2014.

Its finalized form was revealed at the Aero India 2013. It possesses all the roles of a fifth-generation aircraft like stealth, multirole etc. The multirole feature allows air to air combat and also air to ground operations.

Indian aero-industry plans on achieving various developments like a fly by wire with digital flight assistance triple redundancy, advanced cockpits display and radar-defeating/reducing elements. The estimated maximum speed of this aircraft is 1,191 knots or 2,205 kmph. The maximum range of this aircraft is 540 nautical miles or 1000 kms.

The service ceiling of AMCA is 50,033 feet with a rate of climb of 45,000 feet per minute. And the HAL Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft estimated service year is 2030.

Release Date

It is scheduled for the maiden flight in 2023-2024.

This Article is sponsored by Getmyuni.