Indigenous LCA engine ready for maiden trial
http://deccanherald.com/Content/Mar92009/national20090308122857.asp
Indigenous LCA engine ready for maiden trial
DH News Service, New Delhi:
After two decades of copious criticism from every quarter, the indigenous Kaveri engine is ready for its maiden flight trial in 2010.
“We have completed all ground testing for the full engine and individual components. The first flight (in a light combat aircraft) is expected in early 2010,” T Mohana Rao, director of the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), Bangalore, which is developing the engine, told Deccan Herald.
Way back in 1986, the Defence Ministry wanted to develop an indigenous gas turbine engine for the indigenous fighter, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which just got off from the drawing board.
The decision led to the Kaveri programme, which was sanctioned in 1989 with an initial funding support of Rs 382.81 crore.
Clueless scientists
But over the years, Kaveri exemplified everything that is wrong with Indian defence research.
There was serious time and cost overrun and the programme was unable to meet many of its stated objectives. Many government and Parliamentary committees blamed the GTRE and the DRDO for India’s failure to have an indigenous engine for the fighter planes in time despite promises.
On the eve of the flight trial, Rao said when they were assigned the critical task they had no clue about the difficulties and were literally groping in the dark.
“We were thoroughly mistaken about the time. No one guided us. We were in dark along with our countrymen,” the GTRE chief admitted.
Rao confessed that there were flaws in the planning process when the project was conceived.
“We were over-optimistic that in six to eight years time, we will be able to make a gas turbine engine from scratch. But it was a myth,” he said.
Almost for the first seventeen years, GTRE scientists had to work in isolation as there was hardly any outside consultation with other engine manufacturers. “We just had some hunch. Consultation started since the last three years,” he said.
There was no test facility in India because of which the engine had to be sent abroad every time for test, further increasing the development time. The centre has so far sanctioned Rs 2080 crore for Kaveri. This, according to Rao, is one-fifth of what other nations have spent on developing similar gas turbine engines.
When the Kaveri programme was sanctioned in 1989, technical specifications were drawn out on the basis of a theoretical concept of the LCA. With the evolution of the LCA design, changes in the engine specifications were necessitated. Till date, GTRE made eight full engines and four core engines which do not have the low-pressure components and some other machinery.
Three cores and one full engine underwent testing in simulated conditions. In the next couple of months, full altitude testing in simulated conditions would be carried out to ensure that the engine can fire between 0-8 km altitudes.
This will be followed by the flight trial in another few months.
