A Naval Fighter is fundamentally different from an Air Force Fighter. Its entire structural frame needs to be designed and built to handle the harsh conditions of carrier landings. That adds extra weight, which isn’t necessary for Air Force fighters. This means the AMCA and the N-AMCA will have entirely different airframes. You can’t simply modify the AMCA into an N-AMCA or vice versa. It’s possible, like with the Rafale, but we can't afford the delays that come with that approach. What we desperately need right now is a dedicated Air Force fighter.
I get what people are thinking when they talk about the N-AMCA. They’re imagining a fifth-generation fighter jet with an internal weapons bay. But let me point out that the only operational fifth-generation fighters with such a bay are the F-35 and the upcoming J-35.
Now, let’s talk payloads. When it comes to a naval stealth fighter, unless you’ve got engines with enough dry thrust like the F-135, you can’t design a large, voluminous internal bay for a twin-engine setup. The underbelly will end up with a shallower bay because of the intakes on either side. To make the bay large enough, you’d either need slimmer engines or a beefier plane—which adds even more weight.
Unless you’re planning to field a naval air superiority fighter on its own, you first need a solid baseline naval strike fighter. Look at examples like Rafale for strike roles leading to FCAS for air superiority, or the F-35 paving the way for NGAD in the same role.
Fighter payloads meant for anti-ship roles are heavy and have large diameters, like the BrahMos or LRASM, rather than being long like air-to-air missiles. So, depth becomes critical. With the engines we currently have, it’s just not feasible to design a stealth naval strike fighter capable of carrying such heavy payloads internally. At best, we’d end up with a naval air superiority fighter like the J-35 if we try to make the AMCA stealth-capable for carrier operations. But that type of aircraft can’t serve as the backbone of our fleet. Right now, our carriers are practically useless without proper platforms. The priority has to be fielding a decent naval fighter within a reasonable timeframe. It doesn’t matter if we eventually get an N-AMCA—it’s not going to carry a BrahMos internally let alone medium size payload like a LRASM/JSM, is it?
If you try to fit
internally on a future stealth naval jet then it'll have to be a light bomber or fighter-bomber, whatever you wanna call it, may be like a Naval J-36, IDK if it is even possible to launch such a big jet even by EM catapult.
But 1 thing is certain that future is of stealth.
So the solution so far is to use
- customized weapons with folding fins for IWB on stealt fighters, fighter-bomber, launched from carrier. (F-35C, J-35, Su-57M if made)
- supplement attack with 4.5gen jets with bigger external load. (Su-33, J-15, Rafale-M, F-18SH, MiG-29M/K)
- supplement attack with land based long range jets with bigger external load. (B-1, B-2, B-21, Tu-22, Tu-160, H-6, H-20), which we don't have.
- We operate Kh-35 AShM, whose certain variant is made for Su-57 IWB, it is 3.85m long, 420mm diameter, Mach 0.85, 260-300 Km range, 550Kg with 145Kg warhead.
- We also operate Kh-59 CrM, whose Mk2 version is made for Su-57 IWB, default version is 5.7m long, IWB version Mk2 is shorter, 380mm diameter, 290 Km range, Mach 0.88
- We also operate Kh-58 ARM, whose UShKE version for Su-57 IWB is there, 4.8m long, 380mm diameter, 250Km range, Mach 3.6, 149 Kg warhead, LOAL capability.
USA is going for IWB weapons like MAKO, AGM-158 A-JASSM/ C-LRASM, AGM-154 JSOW, AGM-88G AARGM-ER, etc.
AMCA's IWB is 4.2m long X 2.2m wide X 0.75m deep.
Kh-35, 59 can fit. A shorter version of Kh-58 can fit.
We can make new weapons similar to American ones.
Now coming to weight. The best example i would take is F-18SH due to same 2 F414 engines in TEDBF & AMCA also. So if we just visually also see loaded F-18SH or EA-18G Growler with 3 EW pods, 2 fuel tanks, 2 AMRAAMs, 2 HARMs, we can think to bring some of that load to be part of fuselage by a weight equivalent stealth jet. The fuel in external tanks will have to be smeared around the fuselage. The EW pods become reminiscent/analogy of AGMs.
But still a medium jet can do limited stuff, AMCA is going to be our lone 5gen manned jet for long time.
Russians formerly made bigger Su-33, IDK what they'll come up with as a new stealth naval jet. And now USA is thinking of better F/A-XX. So i also started exploring AHCA concept to be a naval stealth jet with AF version to have some commonality & save money.
CAUTION/DISCLAIMER:
- This thread is inspired by global tech evolution, R&D & big jets like Su-3X including Naval variant Su-33.
- On casual forum, there is no need to wait for official govt. or DoD statements.
- Neither global tech evolution waits for lagging countries, nor Discussions for every component to mature & be available.
>Some day upgraded Super-Su-30MKI will need replacement by similar size & weight jet due to technological advancement, requirement of 5th-6th gen. Even after Super-Sukhoi upgrade which is analogous to Su-35-S, the RCS & IRS will be quite high.
>The radars...
