Fifth-Generation Fighters: South Korea And Turkey On Front Foot, India Still Missing In Action

Three days ago (on 21 February), Turkey’s 5th-generation fighter jet KAAN's first prototype conducted its maiden flight.

Similarly, a year ago (July 2023), the sixth prototype of the South Korean 4++ generation fighter KF-21 Boramae conducted its first flight, less than a year after its first prototype took to the skies in 2022.

These two projects started more or less at the same time (early 2010s) as India’s own fifth-generation fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), began its development. However, while the prototypes of Korean and Turkish jets have taken off, AMCA is still languishing in oblivion.

This has caused a feeling of resentment in many, and comparisons are being made, and questions are being asked about the status of the programme.

Although we have argued on multiple occasions about the inefficiencies and delays plaguing big-ticket Indian military programmes, viz, Tejas Mk-1A, Tejas Mk-2, Arjun tank, INS Vikrant, 155mm towed artillery guns, etc, the story in this case is not that simple.

It should be admitted that both the Korean and Turkish military-industrial complexes has shown remarkable speed and efficiency in developing and operationalising complex military programmes.

For instance, take the Turkish aviation industry.

It has, in the span of three years, come up with prototypes of three different stealth programmes — 5th-generation fighter KAAN, flying-wing stealth drone ANKA-3, and jet-powered drone called the Kizilelma.

All this when the Turkish aviation industry has never flown a fighter jet, let alone a 5th-generation advanced fighter jet. All they had experience with was testing the Hurjet single-engine supersonic trainer aircraft, which took its first flight just last year (25 April 2023).

Similar is the situation with the Korean aviation industry. They were able to manufacture and fly six prototypes of KF-21 Boramae in less than a year, a far cry from India where every big-ticket project has to take a mandatory delay of 10 or more years.

Admittedly, both Korea and Turkey's military-industrial complexes have benefitted quite substantially from their association with and access to Western technology and supply chains.

Korea's KF-21 Boramae has had substantial help from United States major Lockheed Martin (designer of the world's first 5th-generation jet, the F-22, and F-35) in designing the jet, hence the similarities in design with both the F-22 and F-35.

Turkey, on the other hand, was part of the supply chain that produced F-16 jets. It reportedly manufactured close to 75 per cent of its own F-16 order and was also supposed to be the supplier of almost 900 subsystems, components, and sub-assemblies of F-35 until it was kicked out of the programme after it bought S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.

The cooperation with the Western industrial ecosystem has helped them get a head start over India, which has to reinvent the wheel all over again, sometimes designing even small subsystems and assemblies to reduce dependencies on foreign countries.

However, their collaboration with the West is not the only reason.

Both Turkey and Korea's industrial ecosystems have shown great flexibility, and adaptability.

Their industries have displayed way better project management skills than India and have approached these projects in a pragmatic way, with their government, R&D institutions, and private industry concentrating all their energies on generating outcomes. This is unlike India, where each organ fights with each other and has competing interests.

Take, for example, the Defence Ministry.

More often than not, it cites a lack of funds for denying requests for buying critical equipment by the armed forces (air-refuelers and AWACS for IAF are prime examples). It adds unreasonable clauses for releasing funds — funds for Tejas Mk-2 (that were sanctioned in September 2022 by CCS) are blocked until India secures a transfer of technology (ToT) from the US government for the GE F-414 INS6 jet engine.

Lack of decision-making and delaying files for one's successor to deal with is another favourite habit of babus in the Defence Ministry.

The decision to go with France, Britain or the US for the joint development and production of a high-thrust low-bypass jet engine (110 KN) is still pending despite the babus in the Defence Ministry knowing fully well that it takes more than 15 years to design a jet engine.

Armed forces, on the other hand, have repeatedly shown their penchant for drafting unrealistic qualitative requirements (QRs) — sometimes so stringent that it would even make the US defence industry cry — FRCVs, Indian Navy's Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) QRs for Project-75I, and assault rifles QRs are cases in point.

Forces have also shown their aversion to iterative development — where support is shown to the product even if it does not meet the exact QRs, for further improvements.

The closure of the Tapas medium altitude long endurance (MALE) drone due to its inability to fly at 30,000 feet for 24 hours is a clear case. It was closed even though it was able to demonstrate an endurance of 18 hours at 28,000 feet. As usual, it is only the Indian Navy that has shown some interest in the utility of a homegrown MALE drone for use from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (A&N).

While Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has demonstrated that timelines are something to be taken for granted.

According to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report released last year, of the 178 projects that DRDO worked on, 119 faced time overruns. 49 projects took double the time to complete, and worse, some projects were closed despite them not meeting parameters and significant performance shortfall.

All things said and done, Turkey is still very far from getting KAAN 5th-generation fighter, with an ambitious target of being ready for mass production from 2029, while Korea's KF-21 Boramae is just a 4++ generation fighter.

They aim to make the KF-21 a 5th-generation fighter in subsequent batches with the full assortment of advanced electronics, high-thrust jet engines, and internal weapons bay.

How a 4++ generation fighter with semi-recessed weapon pylons on its underbelly can be converted to an internal weapons bay without significant design changes and the assorted risks that comes with it, remains to be seen.

The Indian AMCA, unlike the other two jets, from the onset is a more ambitious project with the 25 tonne jet expected to supercruise, while carrying internal weapons, and sporting advanced electronics, stealth and artificial intelligence (AI) and networking capabilities.

To that regard, India has already designed, developed and manufactured a slew of components, sub-systems, and sub-assemblies critical for 5th-generation stealth fighters.

However, the ambitious nature of the AMCA project cannot be cited as the reason for incessant delays. According to ex-Indian Air Force chief R K S Bhadauria, the discussions for the creation of a special purpose vehicle with a private sector company at the helm for AMCA are stuck for close to three and a half years, which is unacceptable.

While Korea and Turkey possessed clear advantages due to their decades of experience and access to US technology, India cannot make excuses. Its experience with Tejas, wherein access to western technology for the programme was denied, should have prompted a more strategic approach to the development of AMCA.

However, no matter how ambitious India's AMCA is compared to the Korean and Turkish jets, the bottomline remains — India do not have a fifth-generation fighter jet when its biggest military challenge, China, has around 200 in service.