Kaveri Engine

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ENGINE DEAL FOR AMCA COULD BE FINALISED DURING PM MODI'S UPCOMING VISIT TO FRANCE
Talks on with French firm for making its engine in India


In a major development for India’s fighter jet program, talks are in final stages to co-develop an engine with French major Safran. These engines will be used to power the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), a fifth-generation fighter jet being designed and made indigenously.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to Europe from May 2 to May 6 to have bilateral meetings with re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz apart from addressing the key India-Nordic summit in Copenhagen. With Macron getting re-elected as French President for the second term with a resounding vote, PM Modi is expected to drop by in Paris to meet and greet the leader of one of India’s closest bilateral partners.

The French company, which has an existing partnership to make engines for helicopters in India, is ready to make the engines in India and as per India’s requirements, sources said, adding that the final round of discussions was on.

The AMCA is proposed to be a twin-engine stealth fighter jet that will come in two variants – stealth and non-stealth version.

According to ADA the final configuration of the AMCA has been frozen (finalised) and by year-end, the CDR (Comprehensive Design Review) is slated to be completed.

A successful CDR means its design has been found viable.

The DRDO had announced the use of the US engine would be an interim measure until India developed a higher-thrust power plant. The F414 has a thrust of over 90 kilonewton (kN), while the DRDO is looking to develop an engine with 110kN of thrust with foreign assistance. Higher thrust allows heavier take-off weights, enabling carriage of more fuel and weapons. It also endows an aircraft with greater manoeuvrability, a major advantage in aerial combat and evading anti-aircraft missiles.
Plus 100 plus Rafale F4 with indian assembly line.
 

SKC

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ENGINE DEAL FOR AMCA COULD BE FINALISED DURING PM MODI'S UPCOMING VISIT TO FRANCE
Talks on with French firm for making its engine in India


In a major development for India’s fighter jet program, talks are in final stages to co-develop an engine with French major Safran. These engines will be used to power the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), a fifth-generation fighter jet being designed and made indigenously.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to Europe from May 2 to May 6 to have bilateral meetings with re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz apart from addressing the key India-Nordic summit in Copenhagen. With Macron getting re-elected as French President for the second term with a resounding vote, PM Modi is expected to drop by in Paris to meet and greet the leader of one of India’s closest bilateral partners.

The French company, which has an existing partnership to make engines for helicopters in India, is ready to make the engines in India and as per India’s requirements, sources said, adding that the final round of discussions was on.

The AMCA is proposed to be a twin-engine stealth fighter jet that will come in two variants – stealth and non-stealth version.

According to ADA the final configuration of the AMCA has been frozen (finalised) and by year-end, the CDR (Comprehensive Design Review) is slated to be completed.

A successful CDR means its design has been found viable.

The DRDO had announced the use of the US engine would be an interim measure until India developed a higher-thrust power plant. The F414 has a thrust of over 90 kilonewton (kN), while the DRDO is looking to develop an engine with 110kN of thrust with foreign assistance. Higher thrust allows heavier take-off weights, enabling carriage of more fuel and weapons. It also endows an aircraft with greater manoeuvrability, a major advantage in aerial combat and evading anti-aircraft missiles.
Kuch to le kar aao Modiji!
 

MonaLazy

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Why likely €1 bn French deal is a reminder of India’s failure to build indigenous jet engine

Despite successes in the space and missile programme, India’s hopes of powering fighters with a homemade engine haven’t succeeded.

SNEHESH ALEX PHILIP
9 June, 2022 09:00 am IST
File photo of the indigenous Kaveri jet engine | Commons

File photo of the indigenous Kaveri jet engine | Commons
Text Size: A- A+
New Delhi: Later this month, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is slated to review one of India’s most strategically important projects — the development of a 120-kN (kilo Newton) engine to power the country’s futuristic 6.5-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).
The fighter jet is expected to form the cornerstone of the Indian Air Force’s manned tactical fleet within the next decade.
But there’s a problem right at the starting line — there is no indigenous jet engine to power India’s most ambitious planned aircraft.
French engine giant Safran is asking for more than €1 billion to transfer the technology needed to make the engines, as part of Rafale offsets contracts.
When it signed the €7.8 billion Rafale deal with India in 2016, France committed to investing 50 per cent, or €3.9 billion, in India in return for the deal.
For India’s jet-engine scientists, as well as the air force, the €1 billion deal is a painful reminder of the country’s failure to produce a combat jet engine of its own.
The country has achieved significant successes in producing power plants for the space programme, as well as missiles. Progress on developing an indigenous combat jet-engines, though, has been elusive.
India, government sources said, is now exploring working jointly with France to produce a new jet engine for the future aircraft of both countries. Last year, British firm Rolls-Royce told ThePrint it was also keen to work with India on co-developing and manufacturing engines for the AMCA.
The government, however, seems keen to make the deal with France happen, official sources said, deepening collaboration with a country that has been among India’s most important providers of cutting-edge military technology.

The combat jet-engine challenge
Few countries have succeeded in mastering the complex technologies needed to produce jet engines for combat aircraft.
Until recently, only China’s fifth-generation J-20 fighter — also known as the ‘Mighty Dragon’ — was originally equipped with the Russian-made AL31F engine, and then with the WS-10 Taihang.
Derived from CFM-56II turbofan engines imported from the United States in the 1980s, the WS-10, however, suffered from chronic problems of power and maintenance.
The WS-10 has begun to be replaced with the more powerful and modern WS-15, but is still, by the estimation of some experts, a generation behind modern Western jet-engine technology.
Even the engines that power the Boeing 747 civilian airliner have at least 40,000 parts. Temperatures in the combustion chamber can go up to 1,400ºC.
These high-end technologies are so difficult to master that very few countries succeed, according to Timothy Heath, an expert at Rand Corporation, an American, non-profit global police think tank.
In some senses, the ability to manufacture combat jet-engines is the true test of a country’s military-industrial base. All five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States of America, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France — make advanced engines.
Although some countries like Japan and Germany have the technology to also do so, few outside this elite club have manufactured successful combat jet engines.

Failed efforts to master technology
India’s search for its own combat jet-engine was shaped by the problems faced by the HF-24 Marut, the country’s first indigenous fighter.
The Marut was to have been powered by the Bristol Orpheus 12 engine. When the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) project to develop the engine collapsed, though, India was forced to accept the less-powerful Bristol Orpheus 703.
The Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) in Bengaluru eventually produced a version of Orpheus 703 with afterburners, significantly enhancing the engine’s power. The engine, though, proved unsuitable for the Marut’s airframe — making the otherwise-excellent aircraft obsolete before its time.
In 1983, the government sanctioned work on the multi-role Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), at an estimated cost of Rs 560 crore. The LCA was meant to replace the Soviet-made MiG-21.
Feasibility studies carried out in India and abroad revealed that while there was no entirely suitable engine available anywhere in the world, the Rolls-Royce RB-1989 and General Electric F404-F2J engines, by and large, met the requirement.
The GTRE, since 1982, had been working on the indigenous GTX-37 engine, and pushed for its adoption on the LCA.
Four years later, a study was jointly carried out by the Aeronautical Development Agency, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, and GTRE to evaluate GTX-37.
In December 1986, the GTRE proposed the development of the indigenous Kaveri engine for the LCA. Based on this proposal, the government sanctioned a Rs 382.86 crore project in March 1989.
While GTRE did develop nine prototype Kaveri engines, as well as four core engines that undertook 3,217 hours of engine testing, including in Russia, they failed to meet the required parameters to power a fighter.
Instead of a so-called ‘wet thrust’ of 81 kN — the thrust the engine can deliver when a fighter needs maximum power — the Kaveri generated only 70.4 kN.
“GTRE has been unable to deliver an engine that could power the LCA despite a cost overrun of 642 per cent and a delay of about 13 years,” the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) noted in a sharply-worded report released in 2011.
“The project is now faced with the alternative of entering into a joint venture with a foreign house for further development of the engine,” the report went on to say.
Large numbers of other critical projects went the same way.
The Advanced Light Helicopter, scholar Eric Arnett has noted, was meant to be an Indian-designed and Indian-produced helicopter. The Shakti engine used by the helicopter, though, was co-designed with the French firm Turbomeca.
New roles for old engines
The Kaveri engine is now being redesigned for other applications, like drones.
“The Kaveri project has helped us master several critical technology domains and, because of this project, the ecosystem exists within the country for design, development, manufacture, assembly, testing and qualification of indigenous 80-kN class of engines,” a senior DRDO official told ThePrint.
“In addition, the technological capabilities achieved through the Kaveri project can be very useful in the development of higher-thrust engines such as AMCA class,” the official further said, adding: “It is always a climb when it comes to making something new altogether.”
The problems, experts say, ranged from gaps in metallurgy, manufacturing infrastructure and test facilities, to the denial of critical technologies after India’s nuclear tests. “And no country, even our closest friends, was keen to part with technology for jet engines,” another official said.
India’s jet-engine quest also suffered from a lack of appropriate scientific personnel, CAG noted in its report. “At the time of sanctioning of the project, GTRE had to nearly double its sanctioned strength of trained manpower to cope with the target,” it said.
“Even today, the institute is beset by shortages in the scientific and technical branch personnel which are affecting the progress of the project,” the report added.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
 

India Super Power

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This is an issue faced by us for past 20-25 years but still no seriousness
No high altitude testing facility, no ftb but mod wants engine to be developed
This shows the effectiveness of mod and political circle
I can bet u they will not procure ftb even future bcoz they don't want an indigenous engine
Coming to gtre and saffran I think they will use French ftb and I hope French have high altitude testing facility
 

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They better not pull any of that shit that the IN sub chief was complaining about. The froggies wouldn't let any of the IN personnel see any data and would close down their laptops if any IN personnel get too close.

If they try any of that shit, tell the froggies to fuck off and go suck a frog's dick. We will put our money into the Kaveri program.
 

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They better not pull any of that shit that the IN sub chief was complaining about. The froggies wouldn't let any of the IN personnel see any data and would close down their laptops if any IN personnel get too close.

If they try any of that shit, tell the froggies to fuck off and go suck a frog's dick. We will put our money into the Kaveri program.
Then it means total tool fixing work. Better invest money in our own program.
 

SKC

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They better not pull any of that shit that the IN sub chief was complaining about. The froggies wouldn't let any of the IN personnel see any data and would close down their laptops if any IN personnel get too close.

If they try any of that shit, tell the froggies to fuck off and go suck a frog's dick. We will put our money into the Kaveri program.
Why wont they pull something like that? You are inviting a partner who has expertise in something we don't have and then we are all kind of tantrums too.

This is obsession with TOT and Having total control over IP even when the outside player helped you make something is unbelievable.
 

Blademaster

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Why wont they pull something like that? You are inviting a partner who has expertise in something we don't have and then we are all kind of tantrums too.

This is obsession with TOT and Having total control over IP even when the outside player helped you make something is unbelievable.
IN paid a premium for those subs and only wanted to see the data to make further improvements on the subs without paying a hefty price. The froggies refused and demanded their pound in flesh.

I like the French products. I really do. They make really good products but I am not a fan of being a victim of highway robbery.
 

SKC

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IN paid a premium for those subs and only wanted to see the data to make further improvements on the subs without paying a hefty price. The froggies refused and demanded their pound in flesh.

I like the French products. I really do. They make really good products but I am not a fan of being a victim of highway robbery.
Stop calling other countries these word first. Yes we paid premium as we can not make them ourself.
Unki G mai dum hai to wo kar rahe hain. Tumhare G mai dum hai to tum unse data nikalwa lo.
 

Blademaster

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Stop calling other countries these word first. Yes we paid premium as we can not make them ourself.
Unki G mai dum hai to wo kar rahe hain. Tumhare G mai dum hai to tum unse data nikalwa lo.
The only reason we couldn't make them ourselves is because we as a society are afraid of failures and cannot accept failures. We could have made them if we had consistently supported these programs in the first place and continue to support them on a massive scale. Now we are stuck on importing expensive weapon platforms that will drain our state's coffers in no time.
 

no smoking

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The only reason we couldn't make them ourselves is because we as a society are afraid of failures and cannot accept failures. We could have made them if we had consistently supported these programs in the first place and continue to support them on a massive scale.
I always can't help laughing when people talk about self-development and failure like this as if it is just an overcooked launch, you just need to put another meal into the oven. No, these kind of failures cause great loss of huge amount of investment - money, materials, time, and even lives. These resources don't come from thin air, they are fund cut from other department. Ultimately, they are from people's pocket. More invested in R&D, less contributed to individual income. It is easy to advocate the consistent self-development, but it is hard to convince the general public to support it by keeping their living standard in a lower level for decades.
 

Blademaster

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I always can't help laughing when people talk about self-development and failure like this as if it is just an overcooked launch, you just need to put another meal into the oven. No, these kind of failures cause great loss of huge amount of investment - money, materials, time, and even lives. These resources don't come from thin air, they are fund cut from other department. Ultimately, they are from people's pocket. More invested in R&D, less contributed to individual income. It is easy to advocate the consistent self-development, but it is hard to convince the general public to support it by keeping their living standard in a lower level for decades.
Then go and suck off the foreign imports. Your attitude is the reason why India cannot develop these programs in house. You have such a defeatist attitude.

China with less resources pulled it off. Heck faced with no options ISRO managed to produce its own rockets instead of buying them directly from Russia. The best thing for India is to have sanctions slapped on them so India has no choice but to develop those products in house.
 

India Super Power

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Then go and suck off the foreign imports. Your attitude is the reason why India cannot develop these programs in house. You have such a defeatist attitude.

China with less resources pulled it off. Heck faced with no options ISRO managed to produce its own rockets instead of buying them directly from Russia. The best thing for India is to have sanctions slapped on them so India has no choice but to develop those products in house.
He is Chinese bro
 

no smoking

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China with less resources pulled it off. Heck faced with no options ISRO managed to produce its own rockets instead of buying them directly from Russia. The best thing for India is to have sanctions slapped on them so India has no choice but to develop those products in house.
Just look at China, with a much serious sanction imposed on her for almost 20 years, she still managed to continue her rocket program. But with a much better environment from 1980, it took them 35 years to a indigenous jet-engine ready (still with foreign concept and techs). On top of that, we have to add on 20 years effort of reverse-engineering Soviet old engines prior to 1980. What this history tells us? Developing a modern jet engine is much much more difficult than rocket and rocket engine. Even Iran, North Korea can development their own rocket in house.
 

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