India's R&D in Defence DRDO, PSUs and Private Sector

[NRao]

I am by and large aware of what GE is doing in the engines arena, so what does this mean?

joint development of the GE-414 jet engine

[RoyG]

The US will never give up the its crown jewels of engine tech. They'll leave out the most sensitive components and we'll still be reliant on them.

[brar_w]

The US Or Anyone Else will never give up the crown jewels of engine tech. They'll leave out the most sensitive components and we'll still be reliant on them.

Thats a more correct way to put it . Of course tech transfer and Licensed Production is something that will be up for negotiation with the former being closely held to the chest by the US and GE. As the MMRCA saga has shown, advanced western technology comes at a very very high cost when it comes to full or even partial TOT. That cost most likely makes it prohibitive from venturing down that path, and makes investing the same amount of money in in-house tech development a better alternative. Therefore the best strategy may well be to go after license production and co-development of enhanced capability and invest the money into the Kaveri for the future.

[Cosmo_R]

I am by and large aware of what GE is doing in the engines arena, so what does this mean?

joint development of the GE-414 jet engine

What this means is that we get to fund the EDE/EPE in exchange for a break in price and 'royalties' for third party sales (like the UAE Block 60 stuff)

[brar_w]

What this means is that we get to fund the EDE/EPE in exchange for a break in price and 'royalties' for third party sales (like the UAE Block 60 stuff)

I seriously doubt that would be the case since a bulk of the design and development has already occurred funded by the USN, and GE. What is left is to run a test and certification program and introduce any additional technology or capability the Indian side may wish to have for the AMCA - that area is something that the US and India can have joint teams look into and co-develop but the basic technology required for the EDE and EPE engines has been developed long back through the AFRL efforts and even preliminary testing has been conducted partially funded by the USN and partially by GE. Even the follow on to the IHPTET (from which the F414 EDE/EPE gets its core technology) i.e. VAATE is perhaps 2 years away from reaching TRL6 and a further 2 years from TRL7.

At the same time GE is offering these capabilities to India, it is also offering them to the USN, South Korea and Turkey. The reason why the EDE/EPE engine solution is attractive compared to the peers is because relative to other engines in the same class the GE solutions has been developed and tested to a degree thus reducing (considerably) risk, cost and time for a fully certified product.

[NRao]

The US will never give up the its crown jewels of engine tech. They'll leave out the most sensitive components and we'll still be reliant on them.

Which is why I asked, what does this mean. IP is a given.

What is this "joint development"? To me "development" - in engines - is some 15 years or so cycle. Is that what India wants?

That does not fit in with the AMCA, forget the LCA dev cycle.


Seems to me that India would like a branch out for the 414, with some modifications to fit the Indian planes. Right now. And, finally, to be made in India. Some 500-600 engines, perhaps more over the life span of these machines.

added l8r:

What this means is that we get to fund the EDE/EPE in exchange for a break in price

Dunno. Perhaps some components from them?

I feel India wants some IP moving forward, but even to get that IP, needs help. So, GE provides direction (which does not expose GE IP) based on what India has done so far (so India retains IP), ......................

Complex stuff. Time is running.

[NRao]

BTW, The US companies will be expected to do just enough to keep politicians - who are spearheading this - happy/entertained or cross stuff on their bullet point ppt.

[brar_w]

[Kanson]

GE is targeting these efforts with one eye on F-35 program as well.

GE isn't targeting anything in particular, they bid for and secured the rights to participate in the ADVENT program along the RR and they built the core t the specific demanded by AFRL. Similarly, they were selected along with Pratt and Whitney to develop the AETD cores which they are doing. This does not lead to any engine, but to a transition program starting next year that will then mature all the technology to launch an EMD engine in whichever class they want by 2019 (thats when a new engine EMD phase is launched so add 5-10 year development cycle beyond 2019, unless there is an engine being developed in secret for the bomber).

McCormick, General Manager, Military Engines, GE disagrees with you on this.

VAATE technology will not be up for discussion. VAATE is for the next generation of engines and is not going to be up for export or for upgrade for current engines. I don't even recall the last time the US DOD ever agreed to transfer tech or export technology that was still being developed in its labs, let alone in propulsion.

For us, if (that is big IF) tech transfer and engine selection happens on the expected line , it will be on the F414. DTTI can discuss on such initiatives.

GE will offer for export and discuss TOT on ( along with the Pentagon as per the guidelines established), on the EPE and EDE engines that utilize most of the work done by GE through the IHTET efforts. It will be the same set of enhancements GE has offered to the USN and will also offer to South Korea as part of their 5th generation effort.

Here too I have disagreement with you.
Under right circumstance such things are possible of what you say might not happen. There are precedences.

-------------

Again you are not getting my point. GE ported back whatever developed/available at that time ( 15 years back) to F414 engine to create what is known F414-EDE.

F414-EDE is a specific requirement by USN, customized for USN.

While we may look buying a F414-EDE class engine, what we are at it along with engine purchase is the engine technology. On this, what we have our requirement may or may not be of what USN wanted.

At that time of such transaction, what ever that is negotiated as technology purchase will be ported to F414 as co-development along with indigenous tech, same way GE ported some of the 5th gen tech.(IHTET) available at that time to F414 to specific USN requirement to make it as F414-EDE.

So I argued that -- citing example of this, and that of Pratt & Whitney trying to upgrade engine F135 (5th gen tech) through some of the tech developed under VAATE(6th gen tech) meant for F-35 (which will be exported to other countries; so exporting 6th gen tech too along with 5th gen tech) -- while there is a F414-EDE route there could be another in the form of F414-ADVENT -- similar to the F135 engine upgrade logic -- porting some of the tech available at that time back to F414 for Indian consumption. And I said DTTI as a platform can explore on this as another route.

And I see nothing in this to be disagreed.

[brar_w]

McCormick, General Manager, Military Engines, GE disagrees with you on this

The Engine choice for the ADVENT does not and did not rest with GE. They were expected to design technologies only. Even if GE wanted to, there is absolutely no engine to get out of ADVENT since its A) Not even a complete engine, and B ) is a technology development program. It does not lead to anything, it simply accomplishes its objectives and the program transitions into AETD where both GE and P&W are developing a further engine..This program is currently ongoing. Once AETD concludes, the VAATE effort again transitions into the AETP which is a 45K thrust engine.

Even the AETP however, has absolutely no chance of becoming an operational engine since the mandate for that effort is to design a transition engine to take the technology to a high TRL whereby they could enter an EMD program starting 2019. This is the fact on the ground. ADVENT cannot fit the F-35 although GE may hope that they may get some work on the other side of AETP for the F-35, however the likely scenario would be for P&W to insert some AETP technology into the F135 (much like the F-114 EPE did with previous generation technology) and for GE or/and P&W to get full fledged contracts to develop 6th generation engines post AETP. There is no engine for GE to spin off ADVENT/AETD or AETP technology for the F-35. They would essentially require a totally new engine, and there again like the previous time they would loose out on risk, cost and complexity that the Pentagon judges competition out. Have no doubt, that what GE is currently positioning itself, its resources on is the GEWIII, and competing again having lost the first two. Pratt is doing the same, and are pulling huge money out of their own pocket to stay ahead of the curve in VAATE. In fact, Pratt that did not get a single dollar from the Pentagon for the ADVENT matched GE's award with internal R&D investments. All this is for the GEWIII that is likely being played out in labs at the moment and that will have a bearing on who develops the dominant engines for the next generation fighters and unmanned aircraft between 2030 and 2060-70.

It takes a long long time to develop a full fledged next-generation propulsion system and get it certified. If the AETP smoothly transitions into an EMD engine don't expect anything to come out of that for a decade at the earliest unless as I said earlier there is one engine being developed in secret for a classified program.

If you are thinking that GE will offer VAATE technologies for a F414+ engine you are likely to be disappointed for reasons that have to do both with complexity and cost and the fact that given export regimes, and what the US would be willing to part ways with the EPE/EDE would be the absolute limit, apart from some India specific things that could be jointly developed. The best thing to come out of this would be the EPE is developed for India, that provides a high thrust to weight ratio engine with 26,000 lb. of thrust, and high reliability. If this is what materializes that is what most likely will be worked out.

Also the chances of GE getting an alternate engine for the F-35 back using VAATE technology is extremely small since it is pointless since that will be a waste of money since you could better spend the money by continuing to develop the F-135 using VAATE technologies while concentrating on 2 engines you would require for the F-X and F-XX for the future. GE's PR can continue to believe in whatever they want but the fiscal reality is that no one is going to completely spend the 5-8 Billion required to develop a new engine for the f-35 when you can gain a lot of benefits by simply adding capability to the F-135 at a fraction of the cost. A simple upgrade to the current engine is going to deliver 5% better performance by the early 2020's and this is without AETP technology (VAATE). While upgrades will not get you to AETP levels , a full fledged engine for the F-35 won't be possible till the early to mid 2030's, a time where propulsion awards would have to compete with future fighter projects.

So I argued that -- citing example of this, and that of Pratt & Whitney trying to upgrade engine F135 (5th gen tech) through some of the tech developed under VAATE(6th gen tech) meant for F-35 (which will be exported to other countries; so exporting 6th gen tech too along with 5th gen tech) -- while there is a F414-EDE route there could be another in the form of F414-ADVENT -- similar to the F135 engine upgrade logic -- porting some of the tech available at that time back to F414 for Indian consumption. And I said DTTI as a platform can explore on this as another route

VAATE F-135 insertion has to be cleared for export which is a long way away (think 2030 at the earliest). Just because P&W may be asked to dust off its plans (that it proposed last year) to insert some VAATE technology into the F-135+ does not mean that VAATE technology would be shared on non F-35 products and inserted into an engine for the AMCA/LCA. There is no indication of this would occur. Heck if we want to talk hypotheticals we can just say that AETP tech will be fully transferred even though no one believes that will ever happen. In the case of the F-35 customers and development partners the export clearance for VAATE technology is going to be much easier because all of them have signed the program security agreements, almost all have a longer relationship with the US when it comes to high end technology sale and most importantly all have spent a lot of their money (proportional to their overall budgets) to either develop, or procure the F-35 weapons system. This deal for the F414 is essentially an engine deal where GE works with India to develop a higher thrust engine for the LCA and AMCA families. It has developed ways to achieve that higher performance and/or higher reliability, and has been offering those to programs that specifically desire that capability.

Given that its going to be the first high profile deal if and when it goes through, this will most likely be the limit of what is agreed to by both sides. The competition also doesn't have something significantly better and no one is investing in anything similar to VAATE in Europe to offer such technologies to get GE to pony up and lobby hard. The russians engines in that class are not considered reliable enough and have an even higher thrust jump required to meet AMCA goals. Higher thrust (26+k) option for the EPE gives some breathing room to the AMCA designers when it comes to weight gains on the design as well. A win-win for all since India (if it is satisfied with the level of domestic production, or even some TOT) gets a high thrust to weight, high reliability engine in the thrust class it is looking, and gets to built those features back into the LCA fleet, and the US crosses a significant milestone in the Indo_US defense relationship. All in all it would be significantly more costly to develop alternate engines to the level of the F414 EPE that has most of its development cost already paid for by the USN so if the details of the deal are agreeable it is essentially the best engine in its class the IAF can get at the lowest cost and risk.

While we may look buying a F414-EDE class engine, what we are at it along with engine purchase is the engine technology. On this, what we have our requirement may or may not be of what USN wanted.

Technology transfer (significant technology anyhow) will be extremely expensive. Technology sharing, and licensed production may be a better goal. As the Rafale deal has shown, complex western Tech. transfer involves lots of money, time and hard negotiations. I argue that its better to go after the Low-Hanging-Fruit as far as technology is concerned, and go after license production and long term propulsion co-development and upgrades. That way you get your propulsion needs met in a timely manner and can secure those for the future of the fighter programs.

Of course I am only offering an opinion and would love to be surprised, but I have always held the view that TOT and License production/capability procurement should be treated separate and I advocated the same for the Rafale where I argued that TOT will be extremely expensive and complex. The Pentagon is a very large bureaucratic circus, and GE is not going to want to part ways with an inch more than it has to. This applies to RR, Snecma, and Eurojet teams as well.

So in my opinion what GE can realistically offer -

-F414 EPE/EDE
- Licence production
- Some technology transfer if a JV like thing is worked out
- India specific changes including possible co-development/scaling down of AVEN (Multi Axis Thrust vectoring with similar slew rates to the Russian/Klimov nozzle but with 17 degree omni directional deflection compared to iirc 15 degrees for the Klimov)
- Co-development of upgrades etc
- The lowest risk of all the engine programs out there with most of the work having been done including some testing of the enhanced features
- Best cost given its economies of scale and the lower risk compared to competition

What it will most likely not agree to or at least resist

- Complete TOT
- Transfer of sensitive technology
- Some futuristic 5 gen version of the GE F414 with VAATE technology to dramatically improve performance over and above the EPE levels

JM2C..

[Kanson]

Given that its going to be the first high profile deal if and when it goes through, this will most likely be the limit of what is agreed to by both sides. The competition also doesn't have something significantly better and no one is investing in anything similar to VAATE in Europe to offer such technologies to get GE to pony up and lobby hard. The russians engines in that class are not considered reliable enough and have an even higher thrust jump required to meet AMCA goals. Higher thrust (26+k) option for the EPE gives some breathing room to the AMCA designers when it comes to weight gains on the design as well. A win-win for all since India (if it is satisfied with the level of domestic production, or even some TOT) gets a high thrust to weight, high reliability engine in the thrust class it is looking, and gets to built those features back into the LCA fleet, and the US crosses a significant milestone in the Indo_US defense relationship. All in all it would be significantly more costly to develop alternate engines to the level of the F414 EPE that has most of its development cost already paid for by the USN so if the details of the deal are agreeable it is essentially the best engine in its class the IAF can get at the lowest cost and risk.

Sir, may I point out some of the erroneous assumptions in your argument...

First, the form of F414 suitable to our requirement(in thrust class) is F414-EPE....... NOT F414-EDE. In F414-EPE form, what is the life of that engine? ~1500 hrs. Could you pls compare that to what French and Russians are/might be offering. For ex, M-88 engine of Rafale sports ~4000 hrs life. And Russians offering 5th gen eng tech won't be less than that becoz even the current gen engine life from them is ~4000 hrs (at least on paper).

So I wonder whether you assertion that there is nothing better other countries can offer is valid?

Second, USN requirement is F414-EDE. How can anyone give certificate of "high reliability" to F414-EPE which is not seen any service deployment? As of now it is a paper engine.

Third, the requirement of 5th gen engine is very complex. And I don't know an engine with life expectancy of ~1500 hrs only can be accepted. And there are other questionable things with F414-EPE.

--------------------------

On the rest of your post on what GE might do with JST/F-35, i will take it up in International Military thread.

[chetak]

We asked for engine technology. We got the middle finger. And then got baksheesh in the form of chem-bio suit and generators.

Unkil is such a dear friend

when we asked for engine guys, did they send their diesel engine guys onlee??

[Gyan]

At the cost of being berated as Heretic or lunatic:-

I think that we should design our Stealth aircraft/AMCA as an offshoot of Su-30MKI using the learning & technology base used to manufacture MKI aircraft and use future variants of Al-31 engine in AMCA.

[NRao]

At the cost of being berated as Heretic or lunatic:-

I think that we should design our Stealth aircraft/AMCA as an offshoot of Su-30MKI using the learning & technology base used to manufacture MKI aircraft and use future variants of Al-31 engine in AMCA.

Well. You dug your own grave (and in some respects stepped into it too).

The AMCA, like it or not, has been thought about for some 20ish years. The thinkers have had a boat load of time to check out Russian techs, methods, etc. And, when one includes the MMRCA too, "Russian" has been kept aside. The PAK-FA was one hope and that too seems to have faded.

One thing we can say with surity at this point in time, the engine will be a combo - western plus Russian components. Mostly western.

[NRao]

BTW, for another thread, but, 5th gen is not a progressive stuff. Serious planes need to be designed ground up.

[brar_w]

First, the form of F414 suitable to our requirement(in thrust class) is F414-EPE....... NOT F414-EDE.

Doesn't matter, the technology is the same and the hardware changes for the EPE/EDE are leveraged to either extract more thrust or get more durability. Surely the EDE enhancements would be extremely beneficial for the LCA which can get you to 6000 hours between changes and give you around 3-5% better SFC. The way these technologies are developed to get the EPE level thrusts is through the FADEC as the hardware configuration required to go from a standard F414 to an F414EDE is the exact same as the change required to go from F414 to F414 EPE, more performance is extracted through the software.

The F414 EDE is billed as an upgrade – not a new centreline engine – but it promises significant performance improvement. The configuration changes are exclusively hardware, but how the performance improvement is realised depends entirely on the software. The navy can programme the full authority digital engine control system to upgrade the power output of the F414 EDE engine to around 26,400lb-thrust. The same changes can dramatically improve the engine’s durability if thrust output is maintained at the 22,000lb-thrust baseline.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... de-398210/

Not sure what the airframe life is on the Tejas but with the EDE you could potentially get into a situation where you with higher inspections push the overhaul time to beyond the airframe life thereby getting damn near 100% engine_on_wing time and increasing the availability considerably.

Also as far as the USN is concerned, the EDE/EPE plans was developed to give them the options. No one knows how long the Super Hornet and the Growler fleets will be in service. There will most likely be at least one SLEP and the FA-XX and UCLASS will ultimately define how long after their projected service life the SHornets and Growlers are likely to serve the Navy. Therefore the option to add 20% thrust was always kept. Your threats improve, SAM's become better, opponent fighters become better so you constantly look to improve your acceleration and other performance metrics over time. It could well be that the threat in 2030 calls the USN to seek more EPE configurations compared to EDE configurations but the point is that the hardware changes and upgrades are the same for both as the article clearly showed (I have posted it earlier).

In F414-EPE form, what is the life of that engine? ~1500 hrs

The EPE engines will shorten the turbine life to 2000 hours if the FADEC is configured to run at the extremely high 26,400 pounds of thrust however that is with the current development that is funded by the USN. Furthermore, if you reduce the thrust requirement you can go up in terms of maintenance cost and engine life. The EDE is good for 6000 hours, but you loose two thirds of that when you up the thrust considerably. This is going to be something that will be an issue on every engine that you look to take from the 17-20K thrust class to the 25K+ thrust class. The EJ, M88 and the RD family will all encounter similar issues when you get more juice out of the engine. Compared to the Russian however the baseline F414 offers higher thrust and 6000 hours of engine turbine life and I am fairly certain that given the IAF will operate the F404 they'll have a favorable opinion for it to the engine on their Migs. Also note that the M88 baseline is at less than 17,000 pounds of thrust, the EJ @ 20,000 pounds the same as the RD. The F414-400 is @ 22,000 pounds to begin with.

Engine life is going to be an issue when it comes to cost, maintain overheads and where it is assembled. Given the fact that the GE F414-4 is cheaper compared to the European engines anyhow (in addition to the current versions being offered that can last a lot longer) for equal thrust etc. GE has a plan to go around that as well, through the application of CMC into the turbine blades, something that they tested as far back as 2011 although in late 2010 and 2011 the tests were not successful. They made the changes and successfully tested again this year. You could potentially look to get back to the 4000 hour overhaul timeline if you so invested to do so, but then that is a cost-trade decision as opposed to a purely technical one. It will add risk to the certification program, raise the investment cost, introduce more hurdles in the TOT side of the negotiations and also take time to fully certify. Also keep in mind that the 6-7 year program to get the CMC low pressure turbine blades has cost GE close to a Billion dollars (IRAD) and will be a key component its leverage over Pratt and Whitney in GEWIII as up to 25-30% efficiency is demanded with the AETP engines and beyond. So don't expect GE to roll over and open the flood gates and transfer technology for such high end stuff since it expects to reap handsome rewards from a technology it has spent a lot of internal money developing. So they may well agree to sell the product but they surely will not sell the technology anytime soon.

This and other technologies were the reason I mentioned this as something GE could offer as part of the negotiations -

- Co-development of upgrades etc

Could you pls compare that to what French and Russians are/might be offering. For ex, M-88 engine of Rafale sports ~4000 hrs life. And Russians offering 5th gen eng tech won't be less than that becoz even the current gen engine life from them is ~4000 hrs (at least on paper)

The french do not have a 26000 lb engine at the moment, nor does the EJ team. The F414 family that has already been selected for the LCA MK2 begins off by offering nearly 1/4 more thrust than the M88. The french and the Europeans can develop one but the cost will be significantly more since all or most of the money for development is left to be paid. The turbine life should be similar for western engines with similar level of changes. If you are going to run a sub 17,000 pound thrust engine (M88) to get 26,000+ pounds of thrust you will have to up the temperature and that has a bearing on turbine life. How you address that (and if you do at all) is a function of how you much money you wish to spend, how much of a technology you negotiate access to and how long are you willing to run the developmental phase over time. Like I said, GE has solutions and I am sure Snecma and the EJ team will as well so it comes to time, and money. The F414 team has tried out most if not all of the things required to provide the IAF with the engine it is looking for in that thrust class and they have done it with someone else's money. The french or the European consortium doesn't have any funded program to seek that level of thrust form their engine although they have been offering programs for others to invest in for some time now.

GE has a growing customer base for the F414 family, and actually has a primary customer that has funded the tech enhancements. The same customer (USN) will most likely try to accommodate EDE/EPE testing in the its FY17 or 18 budget cycles for it wants them on the fleet. GE's significant internal investments into these enhancements is due to the fact that there are at least 3 (for now) advanced programs where the F414 is a guarantee in. These are the Adv. F-18, LCA MKII and Gripen NG. 2 of these three are certainties. Additionally GE F414 is at the forefront in the AMCA and Korean F-X fighter programs leaving it with he most significant amount of market share compared to the M88 or the EJ and RD. Propulsion decisions need to be made early on in an aircraft design phase and if you can shore up propulsion targets, and leave room for growth and to accommodate the 'unknown unknowns' you end up mitigating the risk considerably when it comes to meeting cost and delivery timelines. From that angle, the F414 EDE/EPE appears to be the best bet in the absence of an indigenous option in that capability class.

And Russians offering 5th gen eng tech won't be less than that becoz even the current gen engine life from them is ~4000 hrs (at least on paper)

What 5th generation engine doe the Russians have in the 25-26K thrust class?

So I wonder whether you assertion that there is nothing better other countries can offer is valid?

GE has a developed EPE or EDE engine. They have demonstrated it in testing. They also have an additional path to improve that engine further by gaining back some of the turbine life lost from running it hotter. That cost for development is largely paid for by the USN and GE. What is left is a full blown test program to get these changes certified for a particular product (be it LCA, Super Hornet, Gripen or AMCA).

The Russians do not have a modern 9 to 1 thrust ratio engine in this class (The EPE will likely push this closer to 10:1). Sure you could develop one from scratch, if you had the time, money and had the risk appetite to do so. It would also require the developers to be satisfied with the RD-33K and add something like 6,000 pounds of thrust. That engine is claimed to have a 4000 hour life, the standard F414 currently requires an overhaul at 2000 and 4000 hours (changing life-limited parts ) and is expected to last the life of the airframe.

http://www.geaviation.com/press/militar ... 0722i.html

Engines have life limited components that require replacing at the periodic overhauls that you have set in place. Although GE will provide its customers a humongous data set based on years of operation by the USN using the engines in a Marine environment those limits are generally set by the customer unless there is a PBL arrangement. You take the engine out of the jet at those pre-determined times and replace the parts that have exhausted their life. For the F414 they track the fan, high-pressure compressor, combustor, high and low pressure turbine, and afterburner and make the necessary changes at the depot.

What GE provides is an option to scale the F414 EPE/EDE to a thrust class between 22,000 and 26,000 and this provides a high level of flexibility given uncertainty of weight gains associated with new aircraft projects. You could all the up to 26,400 pounds of thrust and based on what has been already developed, take a hit with more overhauls, replacing parts etc or you settle for a lower number and gain durability. You could also in the long run do some joint development to add more durability at the higher thrust settings since GE has a roadmap for that as well, something that they have backed up through internal investments and demonstrations.

Second, USN requirement is F414-EDE. How can anyone give certificate of "high reliability" to F414-EPE which is not seen any service deployment? As of now it is a paper engine

USN developed a certain level of technology. They still need to pay more to finish development and test and certify it for operational use. GE has offered, in the past an undisclosed shared-development and testing proposals and has also indicated some willingness to develop it in house and then have the customer pay for the development later through a premium on the production cost.

As far as your second part regarding RELIABILITY , what GE claims is 6000 hours for EDE at 22K thrust, and 2000 hours turbine life if you are going to operate it at 26,400 pounds of thrust. Anything in between will obviously have the life in between 2 and 6 k as well. As far as VERIFYING the claims, thats what you pay them to develop and demonstrate and show through the test program. That is what I have been saying they need the cash for. You are looking at a "developmental' program as opposed to buying the F414-400 where the USN will be requested through FMS route to provide reliability testing data form its operational and test programs.

Secondly, neither of the other proposals in the picture have even capability in development. Just PROPOSALS. It applies tot eh EuroJet, -88 and the Russian engine. None of them have done any hardware-work on their engines to get them to a higher trust level being talked about, while GE has done most of the development and has the last bit of development and testing left to do. Hence its position in this market segment is much stronger compared to the competitors not to mention that the $ amount invested by the Indian side on the F414 will pay off back into the LCA fleet as well which won't happen if a totally new engine is invited into (to get it to the level desired). But the fact remains, if you are going to use the F414 at its peak EPE setting you will have to pay more for that capability in terms of maintenance and overall cost i.e. change the engine nearly every 10 years or so, compared to every 3 decades (assuming 200 hours of annual flying).

Of course 2000 or 6000 hours is also subject to SLEP's which will surely be offered as the F414 family ages -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhmQTffYlbU

The way I see this playing out in the next 2-4 years is that the USN will introduce between FY17 and FY19 money into the baseline to get the EPE/EDE changes developed and certified. Depending upon how the negotiations under the new framework proceed the Indian side would be offered to come in and co-develop some of the stuff that is specific to the Indian needs. GE will most likely be willing to offer license production with perhaps some Tech transfer. The AVEN could also be offered since it was something GE developed some 25 years or so ago and have offered it to VOLVO/SAAB for the same engine family in the past.

As of now it is a paper engine.

That would be an extremely poor way to characterize it given that each and every component change (3D Aero components) being offered for the EDE/EPE has been produced (actual hardware) under USN contract, incorporated into a demonstration and run to show the results through the government funded demonstrations through the last decade or so.

[ramana]

So India's two major weapons projects for the sword arm services: armored corps and fighter aircraft are in doldrums due to reluctance of services to accept and DRDO underachieving.

Shouldn't some one in both pay a price? Or is it all chalta hai with no accountability?

If it weren't so hurtful, I would think full validation of Dilbert Principle is in both arenas.

[Kanson]

On the rest of your post on what GE might do with JST/F-35, i will take it up in International Military thread.

replied here
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 8#p1852618

[Kanson]

@brar_w

Doesn't matter, the technology is the same and the hardware changes for the EPE/EDE are leveraged to either extract more thrust or get more durability. Surely the EDE enhancements would be extremely beneficial for the LCA which can get you to 6000 hours between changes and give you around 3-5% better SFC. The way these technologies are developed to get the EPE level thrusts is through the FADEC as the hardware configuration required to go from a standard F414 to an F414EDE is the exact same as the change required to go from F414 to F414 EPE, more performance is extracted through the software.

The F414 EDE is billed as an upgrade – not a new centreline engine – but it promises significant performance improvement. The configuration changes are exclusively hardware, but how the performance improvement is realised depends entirely on the software. The navy can programme the full authority digital engine control system to upgrade the power output of the F414 EDE engine to around 26,400lb-thrust. The same changes can dramatically improve the engine’s durability if thrust output is maintained at the 22,000lb-thrust baseline.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... de-398210/

GE has a plan to go around that as well, through the application of CMC into the turbine blades, something that they tested as far back as 2011 although in late 2010 and 2011 the tests were not successful. They made the changes and successfully tested again this year. You could potentially look to get back to the 4000 hour overhaul timeline if you so invested to do so, but then that is a cost-trade decision as opposed to a purely technical one. It will add risk to the certification program, raise the investment cost, introduce more hurdles in the TOT side of the negotiations and also take time to fully certify. Also keep in mind that the 6-7 year program to get the CMC low pressure turbine blades has cost GE close to a Billion dollars (IRAD) and will be a key component its leverage over Pratt and Whitney in GEWIII as up to 25-30% efficiency is demanded with the AETP engines and beyond. So don't expect GE to roll over and open the flood gates and transfer technology for such high end stuff since it expects to reap handsome rewards from a technology it has spent a lot of internal money developing. So they may well agree to sell the product but they surely will not sell the technology anytime soon.

This and other technologies were the reason I mentioned this as something GE could offer as part of the negotiations

Very much agree that F414-EDE should be termed more as upgrade option. Even though it can provide higher thrust, it never matches the true potential of an engine built for 110KN class.

"GE has a plan to go around that as well" - Same thing I mentioned which started this line of discussion. Seems, this has come to a full circle.

Here is my post where I stated that.

Another route apart from F414-EDE is the F414-ADVENT program that is available for DTTI to discuss

======================================

I attempted to give a detailed reply but alas that was lost to forum software glitch. So I summarize what I was trying to say.

Rest of you post talks how GE F414 in EPE form is more ideal for our requirement(AMCA). You try to substantiate it by,
1. Cost - Not only cheaper compared to European engines BUT cost-effective as USN already paid for it
2. Risk - As other countries don't have ready engine in this class. So less risk with GE engine.
3. Reliability - you offered your opinion.

First, I like to draw your attention to this statement and with that I like to emphasize that we are NOT merely into engine purchase; we are REALLY looking for engine technology.

“So far they have treated the DTTI as a channel to help American companies to bypass competitive procurement and multi-vendor tenders. But we will allow that only when there are clear technology benefits for India,” he added.

If we can view from that angle, Cost figure is not merely going to be engine price.

As we are buying engine technology with GE or others, there will be co-development of engine and there is always Risk factor in this.

Reliability - Here is where I could not agree with you. And I quote some of your statements in this regard,

The EPE engines will shorten the turbine life to 2000 hours if the FADEC is configured to run at the extremely high 26,400 pounds of thrust however that is with the current development that is funded by the USN. Furthermore, if you reduce the thrust requirement you can go up in terms of maintenance cost and engine life. The EDE is good for 6000 hours, but you loose two thirds of that when you up the thrust considerably. This is going to be something that will be an issue on every engine that you look to take from the 17-20K thrust class to the 25K+ thrust class.

As far as your second part regarding RELIABILITY , what GE claims is 6000 hours for EDE at 22K thrust, and 2000 hours turbine life if you are going to operate it at 26,400 pounds of thrust. Anything in between will obviously have the life in between 2 and 6 k as well.

But the fact remains, if you are going to use the F414 at its peak EPE setting you will have to pay more for that capability in terms of maintenance and overall cost i.e. change the engine nearly every 10 years or so, compared to every 3 decades (assuming 200 hours of annual flying).

That engine is claimed to have a 4000 hour life, the standard F414 currently requires an overhaul at 2000 and 4000 hours (changing life-limited parts ) and is expected to last the life of the airframe.
http://www.geaviation.com/press/militar ... 0722i.html

whichever way GE try to wrap with tech terms and language sophistry, the fact is engine life is 2000 hrs in EPE form.

As far as I could recall, GE never said EPE life is 2000 hrs at 26,400 pounds of thrust. It only said, 2000 hrs at higher thrust than F414-EDE. If there is one from GE where it exactly says "2000 hrs at 26,400 pounds of thrust", I'm very much obliged to take note of it.

So to start with 2000 hrs is a shaky figure. Exact figure of engine life at the thrust we would like to operate in sustained manner as needed for AMCA could be lower. Conservatively I believe it could be ~1500 hrs (which i mentioned earlier).

Currently, I don't have have document to justify, but if you can take my word for it, the record of F414-400 in USN doesn't paint a rosy picture. It falls far short of the 2000 hrs figure given by GE. Of course, it is operating in harsh environment. As we look at it, 2000 hrs figure is the turbine life of F414-400. F414-EDE suppose to increase that 2000 hr to 6000 hr. What EPE does is it brings back that to 2000 hrs (as per GE).
That is to the old standard of F414-400 - in that aspect the service record of F414-400 gains prominence than what was promised under F414-EDE.

If we take look at all these, Reliability factor is not what it seems to be.

You were asking about LCA airframe life. As I could recall, it is 6000 hrs for LCA prototype (conservative fig.). If we could extend the same for AMCA (5th gen a/c in development),

@1500 hrs ( as GE not provided the thrust profile for 2000 hrs figure nor stated that it is for the highest thrust it could offer), it requires 4 turbines and more than 2 compressor replacement for one engine. Will it be cost effective? And what would be the case if it further less than 1500 hrs?

I conclude that, GE F414-EPE provides the thrust requirement of AMCA for immediate need; in over-all scheme of things, it is far from ideal choice.

[srai]

All these talk of engine JV, IMO, if cost not an issue, India should pursue JV with multiple countries as well as continue with indigenous efforts. JVs will get India the engines faster but won't provide all the critical know-hows and will be protected by partner's IP rights. For that reason, parallel indigenous efforts that leverages JVs where possible must continue.

JV

• AL-41F-IN (150 kN) with Russians for FGFA
• F-414 EPE-IN (100-120 kN) with Americans for AMCA
• EJ200-IN / M88-3-IN (80-100 kN) with Europeans for UCAV

Indigenous

• GTX-35VS Kaveri-X (100-120 kN) -> LCA/AMCA/UCAV
• HTFE-25 (20-40 kN) -> IJT/AJT
• Laghu Shakthi (5-10 kN) -> Nirbhay/UAV

[Karan M]

So India's two major weapons projects for the sword arm services: armored corps and fighter aircraft are in doldrums due to reluctance of services to accept and DRDO underachieving.

Shouldn't some one in both pay a price? Or is it all chalta hai with no accountability?

If it weren't so hurtful, I would think full validation of Dilbert Principle is in both arenas.

The Arjun has achieved whatever it set out to do. The IA has sabotaged the program effectively by ordering too few a number to rationalize its logistics and further development. The MOD did nothing but twiddle its thumbs beyond making the IA retrial. More interested in getting a new chief in.
The LCA, has had significant delays but again, the MOD takes a fair share of the blame, the IAFs ASRs have always been unreasonable, HALs go slow visible. MOD did nothing. If the LCA does get FOC then there really is no reason to not order more. At the end of the day there is no coordination whatsoever and no expertise in the MOD and it shows. A bunch of bureaucrats doing HMVs bidding and HMV can either be thoroughly corrupt (60+ years of congress) or disinterested (the Saint).

[Karan M]

All these talk of engine JV, IMO, if cost not an issue,

But that is the biggest issue..

India should pursue JV with multiple countries as well as continue with indigenous efforts. JVs will get India the engines faster but won't provide all the critical know-hows and will be protected by partner's IP rights. For that reason, parallel indigenous efforts that leverages JVs where possible must continue.

JV

• AL-41F-IN (150 kN) with Russians for FGFA
• F-414 EPE-IN (100-120 kN) with Americans for AMCA
• EJ200-IN / M88-3-IN (80-100 kN) with Europeans for UCAV

Indigenous

• GTX-35VS Kaveri-X (100-120 kN) -> LCA/AMCA/UCAV
• HTFE-25 (20-40 kN) -> IJT/AJT
• Laghu Shakthi (5-10 kN) -> Nirbhay/UAV

Completely agree.

[deejay]

^^^ srai ji's post makes good sense.

[brar_w]

Very much agree that F414-EDE should be termed more as upgrade option. Even though it can provide higher thrust, it never matches the true potential of an engine built for 110KN class

EDE/EPE is an upgraded capability engine yes. Its a high thrust to weight class engine in the lower to mid 20K thrust class. You pay for what you get. If you want to scale up there are other engine families, but the engines are heavier, larger, more costly and obviously you would need to have a bigger fighter to compensate for the increase thrust and higher fuel consumption.

All the engines in this class that are available for procurement or continued development are at a lower thrust at the moment than the F414 -400, while none of them have a clearly funded path to a higher thrust variant.

"GE has a plan to go around that as well" - Same thing I mentioned which started this line of discussion. Seems, this has come to a full circle.

Here is my post where I stated that.

To a degree you are correct, but do note that the CMC requirement is an internal GE funded feature based on their own funding both for commercial and military. To the best of my knowledge, Pratt isn't going with CMC for their AETD engines. It is merely a means to acheive some of the design goals of the ADVENT Class. The main point with the AETD engines is to create a reliable, highly efficient variable cycle engine. So that VAATE core technology will obviously not go into the F414 EVER unless you build a new engine form scratch which won't happen in this thrust class given what has been funded.

If we can view from that angle, Cost figure is not merely going to be engine price.

As we are buying engine technology with GE or others, there will be co-development of engine and there is always Risk factor in this.

Reliability - Here is where I could not agree with you. And I quote some of your statements in this regard,

Here is the issue. There are a few components of a deal of this type. First is the physical cost of the product. Here the F414 is the cheapest in its class of all the western products. Secondly, TOT regardless is going to be extremely costly no matter who you buy it from (Eurojet, France etc) and furthermore you are going to face extreme resistance when it comes to TOT in critical engine components and technologies. Even under the DTTI there is a huge leap you are seeking with large amounts of TOT.

whichever way GE try to wrap with tech terms and language sophistry, the fact is engine life is 2000 hrs in EPE form

Sure, if you wish to run it at 26,400 pounds of thrust. What engine is available in that thrust class, that can run longer?

As far as I could recall, GE never said EPE life is 2000 hrs at 26,400 pounds of thrust. It only said, 2000 hrs at higher thrust than F414-EDE. If there is one from GE where it exactly says "2000 hrs at 26,400 pounds of thrust", I'm very much obliged to take note of it

Well then you need to go talk to someone at GE to get a proper clarification. From my understanding of the matter if you wish to get the highest level of thrust from it, you will shorten engine life, if you keep it at that you will in fact increase turbine life to 6000 hours and if you do something in between you will get something in between as far as turbine life is concerned as well. I am sure the Indian delegation visiting GE will get to know what the exact performance being claimed is so not to worry!

So to start with 2000 hrs is a shaky figure. Exact figure of engine life at the thrust we would like to operate in sustained manner as needed for AMCA could be lower. Conservatively I believe it could be ~1500 hrs (which i mentioned earlier)

They have said 2000 hours Turbine life if the engine is configured to run through 26,400 pounds of thrust.

Here is the exact quote -

The trade-off with upgrading the engine to produce 26,400lb-thrust is a considerable hike in maintenance costs. Running the F414 EDE at the higher thrust setting reduces turbine life to 2,000h, Caplan says. This is just one-third of the current 6,000h interval.

^ There is little doubt that the "higher thrust setting" the author is claiming is the 26.4 he talks about just a line above. If you want further clarification, try to reach out to GE or write directly to the author for clarification.

You can take it to be 1500 hours, or 1000 hours or just 500 hours. But The Indian side ooking into the engine is likely to demand the entire modeling data and as it co-funds this engine likely to secure testing materials and have GE substantiate their 2000 hour performance @ 26.4 thrust if that is what the thrust is ultimately required. Thats what DT and OT are for. BTW, the HPT component is one of the cheapest modules for the entire F414-400 assembly, what is more critical is the cost of some of the more expensive modules that are expected (even on the current -400's) to last 4000 hours.

You have to note however that engine/turbine life is a function of the engine cycles you put on it. In peacetime NATO and US aircraft track engine cycles fairly closely and there is at most times limits on how many times you can engage AB's, how much throttle freedom you have on routine sorties etc etc. Of course if you are going to fly the aircraft without any of those conditions you will put excessive wear and tear on your engines in addition to your aircraft. GE claims 6000 and 2000 hours based on the assumptions that they have which themselves are based on the data they have on the large F414-400 fleet. Of course you can plug that data into your own operating models (desired) and see how much you get but unless you are different from how the rest of the F414 fleets around the world operate the jet you are unlikely to be way off.

Rest of you post talks how GE F414 in EPE form is more ideal for our requirement(AMCA). You try to substantiate it by,
1. Cost - Not only cheaper compared to European engines BUT cost-effective as USN already paid for it
2. Risk - As other countries don't have ready engine in this class. So less risk with GE engine.
3. Reliability - you offered your opinion.

And all those factors stand. It is the cheapest of all western engines, it has the lowest risk since others are merely "invitations to develop" some variant of some engine while the EPE/EDE is based on developed demonstrations and further development proposals. Reliability is a factor of how you use the engine, like I said earlier there is no engine in this class that lasts longer than the GE-F414 EDE and there is no engine at all in this class that has a low risk proposal to get 26,400 pounds of thrust. If there is one, please show me. Also, each and every engine when scaling up is going to run into the same problem, you either invest heavily to get turbine life back to the 4000 or even (hey since its a hypothetical) 6000 hours of the EDE or you basically take the fact that apart from investing in a completely new engine you will have to pay a higher cost of operating a high thrust variant of the F414 along with the -400 for the LCA that you wish to have upgraded to EDE eventually (since there are also upgrades possible). There is a third option but I seriously doubt the IAF and the ADA will look into this, i.e. look into a F110-GE-129 derivative, you will get 28-29K pounds of thrust but nearly double the weight of the F414 iirc and a larger engine warranting considerable design changes to the aircraft.

The EJ200 is a 20,000 lb thrust engine, the M-88 is a 16,900/17K lb thrust class engine while the F414-400 is a 22,000 lb thrust class engine. For the LCA MKII, you have the 414-400 as the highest thrust engine available in the market along with a path to develop that into an EDE that lasts the majority of the airframe life. For the AMCA you have EJ and Snecma saying they are willing to work on higher thrust engines, but they have invested little if anything into those high thrust engines. Their customers and the core-aircraft for which they were designed do not want that high level of thrust or other performance. This leads to the fact that India would have to completely fund any design work or upgrade required to get these engines to add between 30-50% more thrust along with the compromises associated with the same (like running the engine hotter and impacting component life). Sure if that serves the best strategic interests that would be a good path to take. It will cost more, and take longer plus add risk but if there is a strategic benefit attached it could be looked into. However, I do not think any one OEM in the west is going to be willing to open the flood gates when it comes to TOT so the difference in what is offered as far as TOT is concerned may be marginal. Therefore I am of the opinion this deal is likely to be a function of G2G interactions, overall strength of the Joint Venture proposed, the degree of information sharing and co-development and the all important cost/risk equation. Of course the last few lines are purely my opinion !.

My assessment of the DTTI and discussions on the GEF414 are basically talking about what is likely to be discussed, and what GE's position is going to be. Of course its not an obligation and the Indian side can say FU and go for the higher risk, higher cost and technically challenging options as well and that would be perfectly fine if that is what serves India's strategic interests. I just don't see this happening because the present government has a Make in India initiative that GE will be more than happy to participate in, the Indian side would be aware of how tough TOT negotiations are coming out of the MMRCA and will therefore have a better assessment of what is a "good deal" to both them and GE.

Of course do remember that CO-DEVELOPMENT if it actually happens would involve the USN since its the main driver of GEF414 design changes. So they'll have a say in the matter too since they are likely to have put up the most money for development.

Currently, I don't have have document to justify, but if you can take my word for it, the record of F414-400 in USN doesn't paint a rosy picture. It falls far short of the 2000 hrs figure given by GE. Of course, it is operating in harsh environment. As we look at it, 2000 hrs figure is the turbine life of F414-400. F414-EDE suppose to increase that 2000 hr to 6000 hr. What EPE does is it brings back that to 2000 hrs (as per GE)

The hot section overhaul of the current F414-400 replaces components at approximately 2000 hours. The exact number is a function of what NAVAIR feels should be the number vs what the operator and the OEM feels should be the number. There are always efforts on to study the component life in detail and find a comfortable figure to standardize fleet wide. If that number is 1000 hours, it doesn't mean the engine will stop working if ran for 1050 hours etc etc. For most engine programs, the data is studied and built up over time and usually the number revised (often upwards). Do keep in mind that you are dealing with a sub $250,000 component here (HPT) so dividing it over 1500 or 2000 hours results in a cost/hr (operating cost in a way) difference of aproximately $50 an hour Other components like the compressor, LPT module, HPC module and fan module have a 4000 hour life while the afterburner module having a component life of 3400 hours (Likely to fall significantly with AVEN). All these are based on Navair findings and modeling based on their 'data' set which has a high 'at sea' use component rather than a purely 'concrete' usage. The EDE changes increase most expensive component life to 6000 hours. Modern western engines are made modular in that individual modules can be replaced or overhauled. You usually have an inspection regime every few hundred operation hours and routine overhauls rescheduled based on the component life of your engine and how that "model" is comparing to the real world results based on your inspections. For the F414 I recall them actually extending some of the inspection times and trying to get component life plans extended beyond what they had figured because they expected them to last longer. At the moment the overall reliability is tracked, and maintenance and support funded through a hybrid PBL between the USN and GE.



In short, if you decide to run it at a higher thrust its going to cost more as parts wear out faster. If you wish to replace the nozzle and the AB section with a Multi Axis thrust vectoring section like the AVEN (or a russian design) you will have to replace it quicker and that means you will have to spend more money to operate the aircraft. Performance comes at a cost. If you decide to adopt technologies, or invest in development or co-development to incorporate more changes to extend the HPT life from 2000 hours to say 3000 hours, or even 4000 hours you will again have to spend the money to get there. Everything comes down to cost, time and risk. And this applies to each and every engine in the category be it the EJ200, M88, RD or the F414-400 or F414EPE/EDE.

That is to the old standard of F414-400 - in that aspect the service record of F414-400 gains prominence than what was promised under F414-EDE

Sure and what about the service record? Is the US Navy unhappy with the GE F414? What about SAAB, have the made the wrong choice for the single engined Gripen E NG? Finally, is the F404 turning out to be unrelaible for the LCA, and did any data with HAL/ADA show the F414 to be an 'unreliable' choice for the MKII? The Indian side thinks the family is reliable enough to strap it onto a single engined naval fighter and send it out at sea.

You were asking about LCA airframe life. As I could recall, it is 6000 hrs for LCA prototype (conservative fig.). If we could extend the same for AMCA (5th gen a/c in development)

So for the GE F414-EDE if GE delivers on what it is claiming you will get extremely high engine-on-wing times for the LCA MKII through the EDE upgrades. Additionally GE is one large engine maker and they rely on big data analytics to run their models just like all large organizations that track such things globally. They most likely base their assessment on the GE414-400 service performance and the efficiencies gained from the newer technology that they have demonstrated. The -400 USN model (cycles per hour for example) depends upon how they utilize their fleet and that is a function of how the USN's operations itself track with their desired plan of operations. We know for a fact that the Super Hornet fleet is seeing greater than utilization rates than was previously planned so that will change the models quite a bit. Its just not higher than planned hours annually but what you do in that flying. If you are deployed for longer duration, have stressing deployments and don't have the strict inspections you would at home you will have to build that into your models. NAVAIR for example does that periodically and sometimes the models come out and bite them in the back side because minor tweaks in the models at times result in significant surprises (they measure and track a boat load of parameters).

Needless to say, the IAF or the IN cana plug their own operational utilization plans into GE's model and see what they get. The EPE will still last as long, you would just need to spend more money to operate it due to HPT being overhauled and replaced every 2000 hours or nearly every decade while other components last longer.

@1500 hrs ( as GE not provided the thrust profile for 2000 hrs figure nor stated that it is for the highest thrust it could offer), it requires 4 turbines and more than 2 compressor replacement for one engine. Will it be cost effective? And what would be the case if it further less than 1500 hrs?

At 1 hour it would also require 6000 turbine changes . A 2000 hour turbine life is what GE is claiming. Of course they have to live up to that claim and thats what you test the engine for in addition to finishing up development. Developmental and operational testing is aimed at nailing down that to the best extent possible. Of course you could also get into a sustainment agreement and do a hybrid PBL type of a deal if you so wished.

As far as being cost effective, do keep in mind that "cost-effective" comes from what the alternatives are. Why not list the alternatives, and what performance including what engine life they will deliver at that what thrust?

I conclude that, GE F414-EPE provides the thrust requirement of AMCA for immediate need; in over-all scheme of things, it is far from ideal choice

You will of course never find a 100% fit for your propulsion needs when you are trying to take an engine designed for other fighters with different requirements and making it work for your aircraft. The Eurofighter Typhoon, Super Hornet, Gripen NG, and the Dassault Rafale (or the Mig-29 for that matter) don't require a 26000 lb thrust class engine. If these programs required it badly, GE, EJ, Snecma, RR or P&W would have been given the money to develop one from scratch. So by the very nature of the requirement, all engine suppliers would be required to considerably up the thrust levels for their *current* products in order to satisfy the thrust requirements for the AMCA and KF-X and that comes with the compromises associated with the same. At the moment there is only one engine program (out of the lot) that actually has a clearly defined path, largely developed technology and engine-component-level demonstrations conducted to actually meet those high thrust requirements in some shape or form.

Long term, you need to develop the Kaveri NG for your own requirements. Sure you could work with GE,RR, Snecma, Eurojet, Klimov, to develop a totally new engine and run full developmental and test program to get it, but then is that money well spent when you can pump that money into the Kaveri and reap the rewards for your own design and industrial base?

Needless to say a 10:1 thrust to weight ratio engine, in the 25-26,000 pounds of thrust class is not going to come cheap (a new engine developed indigenously), easy or quickly. It is a long term aspirational project and should get a ton of money for it will truly open up other programs outside of fighter aircraft (Large long range UCAV's, and perhaps even bombers).

[NRao]

Better civil-military coordination is need of the hour: Parrikar

[Neshant]

What a great summary by brar_w.

[brar_w]

What a great summary by brar_w.

Thanks, the point was simply more thrust = higher cost to operate, switch the engine requirement to a -129, AL-31 and you have much higher thrust (30K pounds even) but nearly double the engine weight and increase size as well that again translates to greater cost because you then need to make the fighter bigger with more fuel.

Want 3D TVC = Higher Costs to produce the nozzle (Be it GE's AVEN or morphing the Klimov for the F414), and the nozzle is going to wear out faster. IIRC the current AL-31 TV section has an overhaul set at 500 hours. Therefore there is little you can do to get 'cost' back if you are seeking higher end performance.

Designing a fighter is all about cost and performance trades and engine selection is no less. While a scientist is going to say lets work with GE to get the EPE's HPT module life from 2000 hours (at the higher thrust) to say 4000 hours, the acquisitions guy is going to have to do a cost/capability trade on that. How much time does that add to development, how much money does that cost compared to simply replacing the HPT every decade and where else will that money could be spent. Unless you have unlimited cash, every EXTRA dollar you spend on a component comes out of some other component. You could work with GE for a decade in developing the best possible, most technology advanced F414 anyone in the world could ever imagine, develop the AVEN to be so good that it lasts the 3400 hours or so as the current F414 AB module, but you will spend a ton of cash, take a long long time to develop something like that and even then may fall short of some of these goals due to the sheer complexity of what you are setting yourself up for. I am sure the USN will the MOD's best friend if that was done so that their future drones and the Super Hornet MLU could very high thrust versions of the F414 instead of the heavier larger engines. You could do all that, write them a $3 Billion cheque and have them develop stuff and test stuff over a decade if not more. Sure you can have your own scientists in on the development as well. But the point is why?? Why would you want to spend even a dollar more than you need to to fund a huge western corporation? If you get an engine that is suitable, has the thrust, meets your cost goals and is reliable based on your own experience with the F404 and soon F414 why on earth do you want to bank roll a foreign company's IRAD? Why not spend the $3 Billion on the Kaveri family and heck look for consultations and some design and TOT as an offset on the F414 deals. That would be far better way to go about it. I wouldnt even spend a single dollar to have GE develop the EPE/EDE engine. I would just given them an approved order of 300 engines pending testing, performance milestones and certification and pay say a 20% cost premium on the engine (compared to the standard f414-400) as a means to offset the development cost. Let them lobby the Congress for USN's contribution and let them develop and certify the engine on their own. We all know the USN wants these enhanced engines and the major depot overhauls for the initial F-18's E/F's begin in 2025 or so.

The Cost v capability analysis a lot of the times supports buying the 80% solution if it comes at 50% of the cost. In my opinion the main reason the Indian side is interested in the F414+ engine is A) because any feature enhancements funded to it will benefit the LCA fleets in the long run and B ) It is a low risk solution, while the european and the russian engine OEM's are going to require between 30-50% increase in thrust (and those will naturally come with compromise at times similar to the GE F414 @ 26K thrust) with zero internal or main operator funding secured the F414 family is only looking to increase thrust by 18 or so percent, through technologies largely developed through USN and GE's internal funding. Ultimately, the Russian engine comes with the basic question mark as to whether the IAF wants to use the RD-33 derivative for its 5th generation fighter? So I think apart from the nozzle that option may not be seriously looked at.

The only reason not to go for the F414 is if the co-development, TOT, JV production and Make in India targets are not agreed to between the three negotiating parties and if other negotiations get you something better than what GE can deliver. In that case spending considerably more and taking significantly more risk may be justified for strategic reasons.

[Karan M]

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis ... 69813.html

Nepal earthquake relief: How drones from Mumbai came to the rescue
#Nepal Relief
Nepal earthquake relief: How drones from Mumbai came to the rescue
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By Nash David / 09 Jun 2015 , 06:00

April passed by on a bad note. Nepal (and several parts of India) was shaken. Quite literally. Nepal relief is a long story. One of the most devastating earthquakes in 60 years had razed most of Nepal’s tourist attractions including the Pashupatinath Temple and Dharahara. So much for technology. We drool over gadgets and talk of every new phone launch. But, probably technology needs to be appreciated for helping humans, and those in dire need. We’ve been able to reach the the moon, remotely control rovers on Mars, and dream to send a craft to the Sun. We even landed on a comet! But we struggle to save human lives when disaster strikes. Natural disasters bring with them chaos and despair. If technology can come to our rescue ever, it’s during a natural calamity. To save lives of those who speak like us, feel emotions just like us, and in case of Nepal, even a nation that has sent people to guard us, at our borders!

NETRAv2 in-Air 2
The NETRA v2 unmanned aerial vehicle in flight. Image: ideaForge

Now that the operation in Nepal has passed through its crucial phase of rescue, there now stands the larger responsibility of rehabilitation. But over the course of these weeks that have passed by, in addition to the stories of compassion and universal love, there’s one story of rescue that originates in Mumbai.

It began with a start-up at IIT Bombay.

Close to 10 years ago, a bunch of friends at IIT Bombay were tinkering around with whatever they could set their hands on. Inquisitive IITians at work! One fine day, one of the guys thought of building a hovercraft to use over the Powai lake near the IIT Bombay campus. Yeah, IITians never disappoint you with their imagination and creativity. 31-year old Ankit Mehta is the co-founder and CEO of ideaForge, a Navi Mumbai-based company that focuses on building compact, cost-effective and user friendly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These are popularly known as drones, ever since the war on terror was launched by the US to deal with terrorism in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region.

Mehta narrates how the thought of building hovercrafts turned to drones. He adds, “It is a very interesting story. I was two years senior to my co-founders Ashish Bhat and Rahul Singh. By the time they joined IIT Bombay, I was promoting an Innovation Cell wherein we encouraged students to come up with innovative ideas and tried to arrange funds from the institute towards their execution.

Both of them attended one of the Innovation Cell’s sessions. Subsequently, Rahul approached me with the idea of making a hovercraft using engines from discarded bikes and scooters lying around IIT Bombay and flying it over the Powai Lake. I liked the idea and suggested that we should make a few scale models and then attempt the bigger crafts. We implemented a bunch of successful thermocol prototypes to test out the principles. It was really exciting to do the activity at that time.”

A fun idea by a few students was about to turn into something bigger, and years later play a vital role in saving human lives!

Mehta adds, “We brainstormed from making bigger hovercrafts to small helicopters. Several discussions later we realised that making helicopters was likely to be very difficult due to machining and cost considerations. We wanted to attempt something that we could actually prototype in a short time frame. So we sort of sat with the problem of making a small hovering aircraft for a while.

Eventually as it happens with technology, the solution came to us a few months later when we worked out the Quadrotor mechanism with counter rotating propellers. This sort of marked the beginning of our team’s explorations in the small UAV space.”

From an unknown start-up to making a difference

After designing a few products while at IIT, Ankit Mehta and his co-founder and CTO, Ashish Bhat designed the first prototype. They imported some motors and arranged drivers, mixers and batteries in India. Most of the other structural components were hand built including the propeller hub. Mehta says, “We manually made the propellers out of carbon steel and also manually balanced the aluminium hubs. That proved to be the scariest experiment we had done so far and the first attempt to fly the quad resulted in an accident with the carbon steel propellers chopping the connection cables so badly that we were scared off our next attempt for almost 6 months.”




The ideaForge Team – (left to right) Rahul Singh, Ashish Bhat, Ankit Mehta and Vipul Joshi.

In 2009, Mehta and his team at ideaForge built what was then the world’s smallest and lightest autopilot and delivered it to DRDO, integrating it with their UAV platforms to enable their first fully autonomous small UAV system.

DRDO invited them the same year for a technology exhibition in Pune, which led to an MOU with DRDO for the NETRA UAV. Mehta loves working with the forces. He adds, “It has been a positive experience working with DRDO, NDRF and other forces. We have been privileged to work with forward looking officials who have had the vision of inducting such advanced equipment. Our systems have been operational in the field giving our forces the anticipated results.”

When tragedy struck

On 25th April 2015, the earth shook in Nepal. That’s probably an understatement. Because the earthquake at 7.9 on the Richter scale has resulted in catastrophe in the Himalayan kingdom. Eyewitnesses have compared the ground movement to the way a carpet is dusted.

“When we heard of the quake, we immediately knew that the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) is being rushed to help in the rescue operations. Since they are our clients we offered our full support as they had informed us of their plans to take NETRA UAV to Nepal for overlooking the operations. We ensured that we were always available for support if the UAV pilots so desired.”




In addition to the Nepal tragedy, the ideaForge team has also been a part of the Uttarakhand rescue operations in 2013, as well as the Beas river tragedy and the Pune landslide rescue operation in 2014.

The satisfaction of standing out

Mehta feels a sense of contentment at the efforts his team has made. We are currently the leaders in the small UAV space in India by a big margin due to our diligent and persistent efforts in making this technology reach our forces. We are keen on ensuring that we can do our bit in public, and our forces’ safety.

NETRAv2 in-Air against hills-2 -site

According to Mehta, “ideaForge is one of the rare first generation startups in India that has developed a world class indigenous product in the hardware technology space. A lone fire in India holding its own against global UAV technology companies. We are not just buying components off the shelf and integrating, but are designing and developing almost all the components of an UAV system from first principles. We create products that compete with the best in the world while still being significantly lower in cost.” He adds, “ideaForge was founded in 2007 by IIT Bombay graduates who believed they were privileged that the nation had invested so much in them, making them feel equal to any challenge. And we felt that if we had worked so hard in developing our ability to build technology, then it was our responsibility to give ourselves a chance to build products. We were always passionate about autonomous robotics and alternative energy so that’s what we picked for creating products.”

The true purpose of technology

It is start-ups such as ideaForge, coupled with the persistence of individuals such as Ankit Mehta and his team that has resulted in products that have made a difference in the lives of families. Saved lives and brought relief and assurance to many unknowns. It is functions such as Google Person Finder and Facebook Safety Check that have brought about that sense of assurance across millions of users who’ve known loved ones and friends in disaster struck areas across the globe. We believe this is the true purpose of technology. To save lives. To improve lives. And to make a difference. Only then could we continue drooling on the finer aspects of technology.

[Karan M]

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/com ... 302404.ece

₹15,000-cr gun deal in L&T, Kalyani crosshairs

₹15,000-cr gun deal in L&T, Kalyani crosshairs
Alka Kshirsagar

Contract involves supply of 1,500 towed artillery guns for the Indian Army
Pune, June 10:

Kalyani Group company Kalyani Strategic Systems Ltd (KSSL) and L&T are the only two Indian companies currently in contention for the towed artillery gun pie that is valued at around ₹15,000 crore.

Field trials for the 155-mm/52 caliber gun — one from the KSSL subsidiary BF-Elbit JV and the other from L&T and French defence major Nexter teaming — are nearing completion and the winner of the order is expected to be declared over the next few months.

The contract involves the supply of 1,500 towed artillery guns for the Indian Army, including 1,100 that must be produced indigenously under the ‘Make-in-India’ initiative.

The indigenous manufacture is expected to cut the cost of a gun by at least 25 per cent.

The other 400 are to be delivered as complete units from the relevant overseas JV partner in three years’ time.

KSSL has set up a facility that can make 150 guns at Pune and also has land at Jejuri in Maharashtra where a new BF-Elbit facility will be established, Kalyani group Chairman Baba Kalyani told BusinessLine.

5-gun programme

The Pune-based KSSL is participating in three (of four) artillery gun programmes announced by the Indian government in partnership with Elbit, and is also currently making two guns entirely on its own.

At Mundhwa near Pune, what was formerly a heat treatment shop is now a facility for making barrels, breeches and muzzles, making it the only private sector company, and only the second one in the country, apart from Ordnance Factory Board in Kanpur, to have this capability.

The machines imported from RUAG, Switzerland, can produce barrels up to 9 m in length, while the rifling and autofrettage machines can make bores ranging from 105-155 mm.

The raw material for the barrel — a highly specialised steel alloy — is sourced from the neighbouring facility Kalyani Carpenter Special Steels.

In an adjoining shop stand prototypes of artillery guns, including the Bharat52, a 155-mm/52 caliber gun (8m long barrel) with a range of 42 km. It sits on a 12-m, wheeled platform that can be driven for distances up to 60 km and can attain speeds of up to 25 km per hour.

Both gun and platform have been designed and developed indigenously by KSSL, the company under which all of the Kalyani Group’s defence JVs – three as of now with Elbit, Rafael (both Israel-based companies) and Premier Explosives (Hyderabad) operate.

There are at least two more alliances with foreign partners in the pipeline. The second KSSL product in the shop is the Garuda a 1.4 ton, 105/37 soft recoil gun.

With the Indian Government standardising 155 mm bore for guns, this programme undertaken in association with the Indian Army, aims to re-utilise the components of the existing light field gun that is being phased out. “Both these guns are ready. While Bharat52 will go for track trials, Garuda will go for field trials to Deolali soon,” says Col Rajinder Bhatia, President & CEO, Defence and Aerospace, Bharat Forge, and Chairman of KSSL.

After the 155/39 Bofors gun controversy, the Indian Army has had zero acquisition of modern artillery systems and suffers from an acute shortage of them.

“There are over 200 artillery regiments, each requiring guns, so the requirement is for at least 3,000 guns, the vast majority of which is towed guns,” explains Lt Gen (Retd) Surendra Kulkarni, who recently retired as Director-General, Mechanized Forces.

“With each gun costing in the region of ₹10 crore, the value of any contract, including lifetime support, will run into thousands of crores.

“The Kalyanis have a head start, but other conglomerates could also come into the fray - the Adanis or Ambanis, for instance, each of whom could have a foreign partner,” he says.

The government policy review could even bring in foreign collaborations for OFB and the DRDO, he points out.

[Karan M]

http://knnindia.co.in/msmes/msme-have-u ... 34-9264.go

Interacting with the small entrepreneurs, Saraswat said, “You have almost about 150-200 billion dollars of opportunities as far as the defence is concerned. You have missiles, aircrafts, tanks, UAVs, large number of sub-systems and systems which are under indigenous R&Ds some of them are being procured directly which gives you large opportunities to participate in a big way.”

He cautioned the MSMEs that to avail the opportunities it needs to be realize that “defence is not a conventional business”.

The former DRDO chief stressed that - low volume of production, specific material, very unique processes, all have to be made available the small sector wants to make use of the opportunity open in the vast defence sector.

Saraswat, who shared that in his career he has worked with almost 200 MSMEs closely, opined that to be a part of the defence ecosystem, the MSMEs need learn the processes through interaction with various R&D organizations as well as the academic institutions in the country.

“We have to upgrade our infrastructure in terms of modern methods of manufacturing in MSMEs also if you want to make use of these opportunities coming. Quality control, certification and also stringent regulatory mechanisms which control the supply of these items to our arm forces have to be all part of your learning exercise,” he said at the FISME event.

He said large number of industries of tier 1 and tier 2 types have already started harnessing the availability of the offsets and so on.

Saraswat also mentioned that, “major opportunity is 30 per cent offset of this 150 billion dollar market.”

“Even if you become tier 2 or tier 3 supplier, in that you have great opportunity. But for that up-gradation of your manufacturing processes, quality culture, investments in some of these areas will have to be done in a big way.”

If you are able to do that then all these DPP processes will become a boon for the MSMEs sector, he added.

The acknowledged scientist also noted that even if USD 150 billion of the offsets of 30 per cent comes you still have USD 10-20 billion of business waiting.

[Vipul]

Aequs Aerospace acquires Texas-based firm.

Aequs Aerospace, a global supplier in aerospace manufacturing, has acquired the operations of Paris, Texas-based T&K Machine. T&K Machine has over 45 years of experience in delivering parts on time to the global aerospace companies like Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, Triumph Aerostructures, Vought Aircraft Division, and UTC Aerospace Systems to name a few.

This acquisition marks the first expansion of Aequs Aerospace's manufacturing presence in the United States, the company said in a statement.

However, financial details of the transaction were not revealed by the company.

"Aequs is committed to being an agile and reliable global supplier for our customers and, in line with this, we have become the first Indian aerospace manufacturer to expand into North America," said Aravind Melligeri, Chairman and CEO of Aequs.

In addition to 65 skilled machinists and technicians, the 27,000 sq ft facility houses 28 CNC machining centres complete with engineering, quality and assembly capabilities necessary to serve the global aerospace market.

Post-acquisition, T&K Machine, Inc will be renamed Aequs Aero Machine, Inc. Aequs Aero Machine's core competency lies in aerospace machining and assembly operations and will have an exit run rate of $10 million in the current financial year.

Aequs has been a key supplier to Airbus and its European Tier-1s. The integration of Aequs Aero Machine into the Aequs family provides Aequs the ability to seamlessly supply to Boeing and its Tier-1s from its global delivery platform, the company said in a statement.

[Vipul]

HAL-Turbomeca sign JV in Paris for Rs 200-crore MRO facility for helicopter engines.

In Paris on Wednesday, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) signed an agreement with French engine manufacturer, Turbomeca, to support the redoubtable Shakti helicopter engine, which would power a fleet of 1,000 Indian military choppers during the coming decade.

HAL's joint venture (JV) with Turbomeca, long in the making, would support the Bengaluru-headquartered aerospace company's ambitious vision of becoming a helicopter production giant. India's military has already committed to buying three different types of HAL helicopters, all powered by the Shakti engine that Turbomeca custom-designed for HAL. Optimised to fly at extreme altitudes of up to 6,000 metres (almost 20,000 feet), the Shakti engine supports Indian army troops deployed on the Himalayan watershed.

An HAL release announced that the new JV would provide maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) support for the Shakti engine, as well as for the Turbomeca TM333 engine that was initially fitted on the Dhruv ALH while the Shakti was being developed.
ADVERTISING

While not announced, Business Standard learns that HAL and Turbomeca would have equal shares in the JV, which is slated to come up in Bengaluru for an estimated Rs 200 crore. Meanwhile Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's home state, Goa, is believed to be pitching for the facility to be established there.

"This JV will boost the 'Make-in-India' drive, considering the forecast that around 1,000 Shakti engines will be flying in India over the coming years," announced an HAL press release from the Paris Air Show on Wednesday.

These helicopters include the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), which is already in service in large numbers. With 159 Dhruvs already sanctioned for the military, an order for another 73 is currently being processed.

A second chopper, the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), is at an advanced stage of prototype testing. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has committed to buying 65 LCH, while the army wants 114, adding up to an initial commitment of 179 LCHs.

Two Shakti engines power each Dhruv ALH and LCH. The overall requirement of 411 of these two helicopters would need almost 850 Shakti engines, including some spare engines.

Then there is the Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), which HAL is developing, and expects to fly later this year. The defence ministry has committed to buying 187 LUHs. Each of these light, three-tonne helicopters has a single Shakti engine.

Simultaneously, the defence ministry has cleared a global tender for another 197 reconnaissance and observation helicopters (ROH), to be built in India in partnership with a foreign aerospace vendor. With HAL at an advanced stage of developing the LUH, which has similar specifications to the ROH, top company sources suggest HAL would offer the LUH in this competitive tender.

"Given how much we have indigenised the LUH, and its low cost, it would be hard for a foreign company to bid lower than us in the ROH tender. Remember, foreign vendors would be liable for offsets and would be required to indigenise up to 50 per cent," says an HAL executive.

HAL plans to build these light helicopters at a new facility on 610 acres that it has bought in Gubbi Taluk, Tumkur District, about 125 km from Bangalore. Additionally, there could be export orders for several of these helicopters. The Dhruv ALH is already in service in Ecuador and Nepal, and interest has been reported from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Priced at about Rs 44 crore, the Dhruv undercuts rival western helicopters. Increased Shakti production and the new MRO would lower acquisition and operating costs further.

[Abhay_S]

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis ... 69813.html

....

i really hope this company does great things. will serve the nation well.

[Sagar G]

Govt clears transfer of land for defence research centre

The government today approved transfer of a portion of land and building of erstwhile National Instruments by Jadavpur University (West Bengal) to the DRDO for setting up a defence research centre.

The transfer of a portion of land and building will be on long-term lease to the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), an official release said.

The land will be transferred for establishment of a defence research centre namely the Jagadish Chandra Bose Centre for Advanced Technology (JCBCAT), it said.

The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.

The decision “will be beneficial as Research and Development efforts are expected to result in reduction in import dependence in the strategic sector,” the release said.

As National Instruments Ltd, a PSU, became sick its assets, liabilities and manpower were transferred to Jadavpur University in January 2009 under the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) sanctioned revival scheme (SRS).

As per the scheme, the land of National Instruments transferred to Jadavpur University will be used for research, project works, pilot plant study and the land will not be alienated, sold, leased, transferred without approval of the government.

[Avinash R]

^Jadavpur University

I hope DRDO has tight base security. Jadavpur is a hub of mentally challenged communists who will at the drop of a hat start agitating against the 'fascist' activities of the scientists.

[Picklu]

^^^^?????

Jadavpur has stellar contribution to Indian missile and other programs!!!

[ramana]

^^^^?????

Jadavpur has stellar contribution to Indian missile and other programs!!!

True. IGMP wouldn't have gotten off ground but for them.

[Sagar G]

IIT: graphene nanoribbons produced by a novel method

For the first time, researchers have been successful in bringing about spontaneous chemical reactions between two different varieties of carbon nanotubes without using any chemicals. In fact, a simple mechanical grinding of the carbon nanotubes with a mortar and pestle was all that was required to induce chemical reactions. The end result was the production of valuable graphene nanoribbons.

Graphene nanoribbons are being increasingly used in composite materials.

To achieve this, carbon nanotubes containing two different chemical additives — carboxyl groups and hydroxyl groups — were chosen for the study. When ground for about 20 minutes, the additives reacted with one another and unzipped the nanotubes to form one atomic layer thin graphene nanoribbons. The reaction of the two different chemical additives is exothermic in nature and the heat released ultimately unzips the nanotubes.

To be certain, the researchers repeated the experiment using various ratios of the two varieties of carbon nanotubes and in many conditions — standard lab conditions, vacuum, in open air and at variable humidity, temperatures, times and seasons.

“Water is formed in this reaction, and its detection during the process of grinding proves the chemical reaction. Mechano-chemistry was proven this way,” said Prof. T. Pradeep of the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras who along with Prof. Pulickel M. Ajayan of the Department of Material Sciences and Nano Engineering, Rice University, Houston undertook this novel study. Prof. Ajayan is also a distinguished visiting professor at IIT Madras. The results of the study were published on June 16 in the journal Nature Communications .

Till date, there has not been any reported instance of graphene nanoribbons being formed by grinding the carbon nanotubes and in the complete absence of other chemicals. “This opens up the possibility of producing novel nanostructured products with specific properties by mechanical agitation,” Prof. Pradeep said.

The next step is to generalise this in all kinds of nanosystems. The teams are looking at such chemistry with other functionalised carbon nanotubes. Applications of such chemically synthesised nanoribbons remain to be explored.

“Identification of the process as mechanochemistry was our contribution,” he said. “To prove this, we detected the release of water by mass spectrometry. A combination of novel chemistry and modified instrumentation allowed us to observe this.”

Prof. Ajayan had observed the disappearance of carbon nanotubes upon grinding and shared this information with Prof. Pradeep.

“I suggested that mechano-chemistry might be the reason. I had just come back after a class which dealt with triboluminescence, the emergence of luminescence by grinding. I showed him that and told him that chemical reactions can happen similarly. Maybe we could detect water to prove this mechano-chemistry. That is how this started,” Prof. Pradeep recalled.

[ramana]

Old and gold page on HSLD bomb from DRDO:

http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/ind ... _speed.jsp

[Karan M]

Guys - see the Make in India from CNBC, L&T program to begin with, the commentators script is sometimes "off" from the visuals which tell their own story. L&T is literally hand in glove with DRDO which is working with them on most critical programs (from inception). Take a look at the Arudhra radar design (huge rotating AESA).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMqgYjQTQVo
http://www.larsentoubro.com/heavy-engin ... -platform/

The radar is a LRDE design with L&T clearly involved (the array has L&T on it as it seems to be a dummy unit for testing the weight/form fit, and the overall rotating assembly was from L&T and the modules were from Astra to a LRDE design. The IAF may take upto 40+ of these units according to Astra. Very interesting series overall.