Guys on this forum, we Indians have debated about the LCA and Kaveri issues a lot on this forum. In many cases, people have been very critical about these 2 labs (ARDE and ADA) understandably because of all the delays.
But sometimes its always good to do a sanity check with another country that is tryng to develop an indigineous fighter aircraft industry. In this case, I will use China as the other country, given that not only did they have a much longer head start on India, but also have a lot more resources.
Also most chinese on this forum and elsewhere, never stop reminding me about how they are so much more efficient and smarter when compared to our slow coach Indian system.
So I took a peek at this Wikipedia link on the list of Chinese combat aircraft engine development programs. DFI members - Please kindly take a look for yourself. You can come to your own conclusions, but here are mine.
Here is the Link:
List of Chinese aircraft engines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Note - I am just trying to make an honest assessment here....not trying to be bombastic or putting down Chinese engineers)
It looks like the Chinese despite trying to copy virtually every Russian, British and even some Pratt & Whitney engines over maybe 50 years or more have had very limited success. The word "cancelled" keep coming up in the spread-sheet over and over again. "Cancelled" as we all know is a nice politically correct way of saying "Failed".
The other astonishing fact is that China has had so many engine projects by multiple companies and even today they are still trying to get the WS-13 engine output up. They are now at a stage where they are finally starting to get there but it took them almost 40 years with all that TOT and "manufacturing under license" that they have done for years.
I understand that aircraft engine technology is a very complex field that only the Russians, Americans, French and British have mastered......so I am not knocking the Chinese for struggling.
I think that if we look at India's first effort at the Kaveri and LCA with the Chinese experience in perspective, then we can maybe get a clearer picture of how challenging a task this is.
But sometimes its always good to do a sanity check with another country that is tryng to develop an indigineous fighter aircraft industry. In this case, I will use China as the other country, given that not only did they have a much longer head start on India, but also have a lot more resources.
Also most chinese on this forum and elsewhere, never stop reminding me about how they are so much more efficient and smarter when compared to our slow coach Indian system.
So I took a peek at this Wikipedia link on the list of Chinese combat aircraft engine development programs. DFI members - Please kindly take a look for yourself. You can come to your own conclusions, but here are mine.
Here is the Link:
List of Chinese aircraft engines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Note - I am just trying to make an honest assessment here....not trying to be bombastic or putting down Chinese engineers)
It looks like the Chinese despite trying to copy virtually every Russian, British and even some Pratt & Whitney engines over maybe 50 years or more have had very limited success. The word "cancelled" keep coming up in the spread-sheet over and over again. "Cancelled" as we all know is a nice politically correct way of saying "Failed".
The other astonishing fact is that China has had so many engine projects by multiple companies and even today they are still trying to get the WS-13 engine output up. They are now at a stage where they are finally starting to get there but it took them almost 40 years with all that TOT and "manufacturing under license" that they have done for years.
I understand that aircraft engine technology is a very complex field that only the Russians, Americans, French and British have mastered......so I am not knocking the Chinese for struggling.
I think that if we look at India's first effort at the Kaveri and LCA with the Chinese experience in perspective, then we can maybe get a clearer picture of how challenging a task this is.