Kaveri Engine Project update
In a months’ time Joint venture by GTRE and Snecma will be bring enhance thrust to the Kaveri Engine and new engine will be available in four to five years from now on , new joint venture most likely will be signed when French President Nicholas Sarkozy will come to India in April 2010.
Since Kaveri engine has been separated from Tejas Project which is currently powered by Ge’s F-404-GE-IN20 engine and further batches (Tejas MKII) will be powered by either GE F-414 or Euro jet EJ-200 engines. GTRE still considers that new engine still has a chance to power Tejas MKII, but the development time for Kaveri MK-2 of four to five years will clearly delay the development of Tejas MK-II so wisely new engine will be selected from the two types which are been evaluated .
So which Aircraft will Kaveri MK-2 power? Most likely AMCA (Advance Medium Combat Aircraft) which ADE and DRDO will be developing , Kaveri Mark -1 may still be integrated with a Tejas PV-1 aircraft by year end once successful trails have been completed in Russia on a Flying Test Bed in a modified IL-76 aircraft which are currently is taking place . With dry thrust of 52 kn and 85 kn in reheat Kaveri Mark-1 is still good enough to power a locally developed Advance jet Trainer (AJT) or even a Tejas Trainer ,GTRE is also working on using Kabini core to develop small turbofan engine for UMCA (Unmanned combat aircraft) or High flying UAV’s which DRDO is developing ,ADE which is main developer of Tejas program is also contemplating idea of a Unmanned Tejas which may be powered by Kaveri-Mark-1 or 2 ,but there is no development currently taking place at this time .
Marine Kaveri has been successfully tested in a Indian Naval dock yard Facility in Vishakhapatnam, which will power Rajput class of ships, Marine Kaveri engine was able to generate 12 MW (16000 hp) at sea level under 35 degree Celsius , GTRE is ready working on 3 or 4 test engines which will be tested onboard within next three years and cost for each engine is expected to be below 25 crores ,which is cheaper than the Western imported engines , Navy will order around 40 of this engines for powering warship in a years to come
Two decades ago GTRE was authorized to launch a programme to develop an indigenous power plant for the countries Indigenous built Light combat aircraft known as Tejas. Kaveri Engine Program from its start till date only four core engines and eight Kaveri engines have been manufactured even after repeated success in Indian condition where engine was able to generate 4774 kgf (dry) and 7000 kgf (reheat) thrust ,failed most of time in High altitude reheat tests conducted in Russia from 2001 onwards.
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