LCA: News & Discussions - October 2016

[Austin]

Austin: Nothing worse in an aircraft than an underpowered engine. If the engine is not up to design specs, then it is a no-go.

If you have an underpowered engine then there is scope to improve make it better over period of time but if you dont have indiginous engine there then there is no scope for improvement at all , there is no magical way to fit and exact engine (Thrust/SFC/Overhaul etc )that Tejas needs in the first effort there would be long learning curve including but not limited to flight qualification & certification , on field performance of these engine in squadron service ,Overhaul ,on field maintenance etc these can only come if you have many dozen of Kaveri/Tejas flying day in and out over couple of years ....these data then feed into improving the engine and into new engine program.

[MaverickV]

If you have an underpowered engine then there is scope to improve make it better over period of time but if you dont have indiginous engine there then there is no scope for improvement at all , there is no magical way to fit and exact engine (Thrust/SFC/Overhaul etc )that Tejas needs in the first effort there would be long learning curve including but not limited to flight qualification & certification , on field performance of these engine in squadron service ,Overhaul ,on field maintenance etc these can only come if you have many dozen of Kaveri/Tejas flying day in and out over couple of years ....these data then feed into improving the engine and into new engine program.

Austin while I agree that you need the engine to be in operational use to learn the vital intricacies, yet our Kaveri unfortunately is not in a condition where it can be used for a single engine plane. It has not even been certified for twin engine usage. Unless we have a Mig-29 assigned for this purpose, we can never reach the stage where it can be used for LCA. Not sure if the hesitation is from DRDO side (which means they are not sure if Kaveri is ready even for twin engine operations) or they have not been provided a Mig-29 by the IAF.

[Pratyush]

The GTRE has in past asked for a MIG 29 . So I would in the absence of solid information would surmise that the problem is an absence of platform for testing.

Having said that, GTRE if it was confident of the engine, could have asked for an early prototype of the LCA itself and flown it as a test bed. As it is not mandatory for a test of this nature to be conducted on a twin engine plane.


I

[shiv]

The GTRE has in past asked for a MIG 29 . So I would in the absence of solid information would surmise that the problem is an absence of platform for testing.

Having said that, GTRE if it was confident of the engine, could have asked for an early prototype of the LCA itself and flown it as a test bed. As it is not mandatory for a test of this nature to be conducted on a twin engine plane.


I

It is bad form to test a new engine on a single engined aircraft. If there is an accident the loss is not just aircraft (pilot could survive) but the destroyed engine cannot be examined to see what went wrong

[Cain Marko]

Why is it so damn hard for MOD to release some funds to let the GTRE get a hold of a couple of Mig-29s - IIRC, the Hungarians were selling theirs at $ 2 million a piece. Its not like these birds are being used in service by the IAF requiring 150+ hours use per annum. The sale was for 24 birds in total - may be they could be used to get in one more Baaz sqds for the IAF after suitable upgrades!

[Austin]

The GTRE has in past asked for a MIG 29 . So I would in the absence of solid information would surmise that the problem is an absence of platform for testing.

Having said that, GTRE if it was confident of the engine, could have asked for an early prototype of the LCA itself and flown it as a test bed. As it is not mandatory for a test of this nature to be conducted on a twin engine plane.


I

Kaveri did not made out of high altitude testing on Il-76 did not get certified they have to clear that hurdle before they mate it with a Mig-29 and test it at various altitude and subsonic and supersonic regiem.

[shiv]

Kaveri did not made out of high altitude testing on Il-76 did not get certified they have to clear that hurdle before they mate it with a Mig-29 and test it at various altitude and subsonic and supersonic regiem.

That is not what Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar told me. In fact the day the trials were successful he actually called me and said "It's high time these people actually put it in an aircraft and test it". It is now about 3 years since that conversation. I had made a BRF post about that

[Austin]

Kaveri did not made out of high altitude testing on Il-76 did not get certified they have to clear that hurdle before they mate it with a Mig-29 and test it at various altitude and subsonic and supersonic regiem.

That is not what Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar told me. In fact the day the trials were successful he actually called me and said "It's high time these people actually put it in an aircraft and test it". It is now about 3 years since that conversation. I had made a BRF post about that

I have yet to see any official statement on Kaveri getting successful certified on Il-76 test program, they did multiple test programs but never got it successfully certified Kaveri, Mating on Mig-29 is good second step

[SaiK]

So it was true that Russkies didn't cooperate to integrate R77 on LCA so, we wait for Astra now. Derby and Python being a success, we are getting closer to FOC

[Cain Marko]

^ I think is not too sure of its R77 stocks anyway. They are fully behind the Astra for this reason, probly the reason why they keep going with the SARH R27 for the MKI.

[Marten]

That is not what Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar told me. In fact the day the trials were successful he actually called me and said "It's high time these people actually put it in an aircraft and test it". It is now about 3 years since that conversation. I had made a BRF post about that

I have yet to see any official statement on Kaveri getting successful certified on Il-76 test program, they did multiple test programs but never got it successfully certified Kaveri, Mating on Mig-29 is good second step

Enough of this canard, please. Here you go:
Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Defence14-May-2012 14:41 IST - Kaveri Engine

The DRDO has not fixed any time frame to full develop the Kaveri Aero Engine for the LCA, Tejas.LCA, Tejasrequires 90 kN thrust class engine to meet its operational requirement, whereas Kaveri Engine does not fully meet this requirement. Therefore, it has been decided to use variants of Kaveri Engine to power Unmanned Air Vehicle and also for marine applications.

Two important milestones of Kaveri project have been successfully achieved:-
(i) Completion of Official Altitude Testing for 73 hrs at Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM), Russia.
(ii) Flying Test Bed (FTB) trials for 55 hrs with IL-76 Aircraft conducted at Gromov Flight Research Institute (GFRI), Russia.
Endurance testing for about 2100 hrs has been conducted at Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE).

It is planned to commence flight trials for Technology Demonstration of Kaveri Engine with LCA Tejas Mk-I in about 3 years time.
This information was given by Minister of Defence Shri A K Antony in a written reply to Shri Bal Kumar Patel in Lok Sabha today.

[Austin]

That is typical mod press and coming from AKA who did nothing and crippled indigenous project due to lack of decision is hilarious , if I were to take mod press seriously from their years of press statement then Tejas would have been flying with Kaveri engine long time back.

For all practical purpose Kaveri variants for Tejas is dead and it's potential to be used as Ship engine or UCAV program well let's see time will tell and seeing is believing

[SaiK]

Politicians have no idea what Kaveri is. I hope Parrikar is differently enabled to understand this critical need.

[Marten]

That is typical mod press and coming from AKA who did nothing and crippled indigenous project due to lack of decision is hilarious , if I were to take mod press seriously from their years of press statement then Tejas would have been flying with Kaveri engine long time back.

For all practical purpose Kaveri variants for Tejas is dead and it's potential to be used as Ship engine or UCAV program well let's see time will tell and seeing is believing

First you said there were no official confirmations, and when you see one, you say it cannot be trusted? Forget the forward looking statements, what about the clear announcement of completion of the tests? Do you want Manohar Parrikar to come home and inform you about the sucessful completion of tests in Russia? I don't get the dogmatic response to this. Not from you, Austin.

[sum]

^^ What i heard from certain chaiwallahs outside certain agencies, the result was not very impressive in the flying test-bed with some words like "cracks" etc thrown about ( Chaiwallah is not in that domain and just overheard water-cooler talk in his chai stall). Overall, he had said that the mood was very downbeat after the Russia trip and programme was in bad shape

Of course, all this is hearsay/JMT/IMHO etc......

[Kailash]

Nothing can replace a flying test bed when it comes to indigenous engine development. It is better they buy something from Russia/Israel, or design a twin engine UCAV, a manned LIFT platform based on the LCA (our own little Rafale). They need at least half a dozen of these, quickly, to get anywhere relevant with engines.

AMCA will be our first twin engine design. Any intermediate we create can help reduce risk greatly. It can be used as a supersonic test bed for AMCA LRUs, control laws, etc. Provided there is resources and the will to get it done.

[Austin]

That is typical mod press and coming from AKA who did nothing and crippled indigenous project due to lack of decision is hilarious , if I were to take mod press seriously from their years of press statement then Tejas would have been flying with Kaveri engine long time back.

For all practical purpose Kaveri variants for Tejas is dead and it's potential to be used as Ship engine or UCAV program well let's see time will tell and seeing is believing

First you said there were no official confirmations, and when you see one, you say it cannot be trusted? Forget the forward looking statements, what about the clear announcement of completion of the tests? Do you want Manohar Parrikar to come home and inform you about the sucessful completion of tests in Russia? I don't get the dogmatic response to this. Not from you, Austin.

If Kaveri had been any close to success , they would have mated that engine with a Mig-29 or Tejas prototype, Kaveri has been flown on Il-76 multiple times but each time they encountered some or other issue.

MOD knows Kaveri won't go any further from here and they want to give it decent burial, they want to stress a marine Kaveri or a UCAV variant would be a spin-off from this program but we will see if the marine variant will make it in any large number on naval ships or indeed if UCAV flies with Kaveri , keeping fingers crossed.

As far as Tejas goes , Kaveri has been a disaster badly managed program at some point it even got disassociated with Tejas requirement , worst is we won't have any fighter qualified indiginous engine for a decade or two assuming we seriously fund a second engine and it won't end up getting badly managed as Kaveri under gtre leadership, if they fund a new engine today it would be 12- 15 years from today it would make it to a fighter let's sayif they want an indiginous engine for amca

[maitya]

First you said there were no official confirmations, and when you see one, you say it cannot be trusted? Forget the forward looking statements, what about the clear announcement of completion of the tests? Do you want Manohar Parrikar to come home and inform you about the sucessful completion of tests in Russia? I don't get the dogmatic response to this. Not from you, Austin.

If Kaveri had been any close to success , they would have mated that engine with a Mig-29 or Tejas prototype, Kaveri has been flown on Il-76 multiple times but each time they encountered some or other issue.

MOD knows Kaveri won't go any further from here and they want to give it decent burial, they want to stress a marine Kaveri or a UCAV variant would be a spin-off from this program but we will see if the marine variant will make it in any large number on naval ships or indeed if UCAV flies with Kaveri , keeping fingers crossed.

As far as Tejas goes , Kaveri has been a disaster badly managed program at some point it even got disassociated with Tejas requirement , worst is we won't have any fighter qualified indiginous engine for a decade or two assuming we seriously fund a second engine and it won't end up getting badly managed as Kaveri under gtre leadership, if they fund a new engine today it would be 12- 15 years from today it would make it to a fighter let's sayif they want an indiginous engine for amca

No Austin you are getting it wrong there.

First of all, MOD press-releases are as accurate as it can be as far as the current status reporting is concerned ... of course it wouldn't (as it's not possible) accurately forecast the future technical roadblocks, and overall program direction sometime in future etc.
Coming years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, and then accusing those past status reports to be incorrect, is dis-ingenious at best.

Now wrt your other points wrt badly managed program etc - Kaveri as a program to develop a modern-turbofan for LCA is a failure, no doubt about it.
But that doesn't mean it was a badly managed program etc - I'll not repeat all the points that has been discussed multiple times here over the years. But major reason why Kaveri program failed are basically two folds:
1) Insurmountable Technical Challenges that arose every step of the way - this failure can also be attributable to over-ambitious nature of performance requirements/parameters that was agreed in the 1st place. Happens in most ab intio programs all over the world, where there are no "institutional experience" available to judge success-probabilities of what is being agreed for.
(of course the sub-text is, the program wouldn't have been born, if it was any less "sexy" on the paper, given the attitude towards desi R&D by the user community historically fed on brochure literature - but that's a separate point of discussion)

2) Weight Creep of the basic platform itself (due to a variety of reasons) - I'll not be-labor this point further, but do check the performance "creep" between F404 to baseline F414, and you'll get the idea of how massive are the changes required for even smallish performance gain etc.

Also somebody did ask, if funding was a reason for Kaveri's failure - you bet it was!!
India is probably the only country who had the audacity of taking up such an program without even basic rudimentary infra in place (e.g high-alt test facility, and a plethora of metallurgical support-technologies which I wouldn't go naming them here).
But then again, the basic goal was to develop that technological base and infra via that program - some of which has been achieved, of course, some that are still lagging/absent.
And for those who doesn't want to go deep analysis etc of these aspects, pls do atleast compare the funding (and the timespan of that funding) of comparable such programs of our northern blathels, and you should get an idea of it.

But irrespective of all these, Kaveri needs a full flight-testing and certification ... you see, in this art of turbo-fan design and manufacture, quite a large "non-sexy" technological challenge lies in mastering the rotary CFD aspect. Pls further note, these are not where you can rely on formulas-from-a-book and paper design something - there are large inventory of empirical data-points and "derived" formulaes/methods which either needs collecting via actually performing them (eg full-flight tests) or if a partner is willing to hand-hold and disclose them (which they obviously wouldn't, as that exactly what is called IP for such things).

Once CFD aspects are baselined, you can tinker (to some degree) with the "native" technologies that goes into designing and manufacturing the HPT/HPCs, the Fan, the combustor etc etc etc - without even that, there's no hope really for any turbofan development now or in future.

And there-in lies the rub - of course, now try and explain the above to Master-degree in Medieval History, Botany, Anthropology, Pol Sc type MOD Baboons and, dare-say, to some extent to the "executive" cadre of the IAF.
(good-luck finding any non-executive cadre officer beyond a Grp Captain, except maybe a few from Medicine, Accountancy etc - and even one odd from the engineering branch as well).
Just compare that what IN has done to it's executive cadre historically and now, right from the entry stage (recently) itself. But I digress!!

[Austin]

"Kaveri as a program to develop a modern-turbofan for LCA is a failure, no doubt about it." you summed that up well , that is the crux of the matter. We will never see any kaveri for Tejas.

Any program is no good if it does not make it to what it is designed for , in 90 and 2000 GTRE has been promising that would make kaveri fly with Tejas and they have been repeating that often , On paper Kaveri looked good but in reality it did not meet expectations multiple high altitude test done and it did not meet with success.

In the hind sight it would be easy to criticise but it would have been good if they went with two engine program one by GTRE and other by HAL to develop an engine for Tejas. The GTRE team simply lead every one on a rosy path that told us Kaveri would be ready , Now if they did not anticipate the technical challanges you have put up then it is a case of selling snake oil or plain incompetence on their part.

The technical explaination you have put up is good and perhaps true as well but that would not give us back the next 10-20 years we have lost till we come up with a new indiginous engine and that too there is a Big IF.

There is no engine that is currently funded beyond kaveri , we have been hearing for quite some time of French TOT or US DTI etc but it has been just plan talks , We do not really know if a new engine even if that gets funded will ever make it to sucessfully to any program be it AMCA or other.

It would still be good to have two engine program funded one for HAL and other DRDO and JV done by seperate vendor ( via global tender ) so that even if one program fails they can look up to the other and even if both succeeds it is still good and experience learnt and well worth the money, It may be a risky and expensive gamble but it is worth taking. 15 years from now we don't want to hear the same thing that engine program did not succeed.

[maitya]

<snip>
In the hind sight it would be easy to criticise but it would have been good if they went with two engine program one by GTRE and other by HAL to develop an engine for Tejas. The GTRE team simply lead every one on a rosy path that told us Kaveri would be ready , Now if they did not anticipate the technical challanges you have put up then it is a case of selling snake oil or plain incompetence on their part.
<snip>

Pls do note figuratively speaking, GTRE is nothing but the HAL engine division - those skills are hard to fetch!!
And also once it became clearer, from the Marut experience that the user community has no desire of nurturing an indigenous turbofan program and there was this "science project" called LCA (with it's own ab-intio turbofan) in the horizon, it was an en-masse "lift-and-shift" basically.
(do note, GTRE existed prior to that, just compare it's manpower before and after mid-80s).

Let me ask you another question rhetorically:
GTX-37-14U was as good a turbojet as it can be (it's more-or-less contemporary on it's own in those days, mid-70s to early 80s).
Yet when you, Mr User community, having persistent issues with R-11, why didn't you ask for a parallel program with the GTX-37-14U for your 21s. Instead, in the true tradition of so-called "leadership", you simply chose R-25s (for the BIS and Ms), right?

And to rub-it-in ask HAL to screw-driver it (what would any sensible HAL engine-design guy would then - lord over license manufacturing from CKD/SKD kits, for a least-bothered user community, or do some domain-work in GTRE?) !!!

Only to shed crocodile tears, 2 decades later, when the turbofan version of it comes cropper!!!!

<snip>
The technical explaination you have put up is good and perhaps true as well but that would not give us back the next 10-20 years we have lost till we come up with a new indiginous engine and that too there is a Big IF.
<snip>

Yes that's true ... all learning/experience will be lost, if Kaveri is nto taken to it's logical conclusion ... i.e. full flight-testing and baseling the technology (both CFD, Mechanical/Metallurgy), already designed and developed.

Believe me, IT IS SIGNIFICANT.
I will not go into the details ... but pls lookup the Kaveri sticky thread and you''ll know.
(one small example though - what is the technological diff between a DS HPT blade and 3-gen SC HPT blade in terms casting technology? But before that have you mastered end-to-end DS HPT blade design/manufacturing - if yes, why do you have to go running to Safran et all, for HPT blade molding with integrated convection cooling paths). Hain jee?


Rest all, I agree with it - betw why would any other turbofan design house, try and pass on any design-level-technology to HAL/GTRE/whoever
(and some here, will waltz in, with some mythical private sector who can't even design a scooter engine will somehow be able to even "absorb" any technology provided and build upon it).
They will simply hoodwink (and it's easier to do so with 0-experienced private sector farms) into "giving" some manufacturing technology, re-badge it with some highly convulated alphabetic-soup acronym under MII, and everybody will be happy.
After all, all it needs to do is lease some glass-paneled large office-space in some suburb, and have a few PYT and munnas busily ferreting in and out of it, with some annual ribbon-cutting ceremonies by all hues of netajis - and mission accomplished!!

[Yagnasri]

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/in ... 66464.html

Lungi dance to be done or is it still premature???

[JayS]

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/in ... 66464.html

Lungi dance to be done or is it still premature???

Premature I would say.

[GeorgeM]

...

Now wrt your other points wrt badly managed program etc - Kaveri as a program to develop a modern-turbofan for LCA is a failure, no doubt about it.
But that doesn't mean it was a badly managed program etc - I'll not repeat all the points that has been discussed multiple times here over the years. But major reason why Kaveri program failed are basically two folds:
1) Insurmountable Technical Challenges ...

2) Weight Creep of the basic platform itself ...

...
But irrespective of all these, Kaveri needs a full flight-testing and certification ... you see, in this art of turbo-fan design and manufacture, quite a large "non-sexy" technological challenge lies in mastering the rotary CFD aspect. Pls further note, these are not where you can rely on formulas-from-a-book and paper design something - there are large inventory of empirical data-points and "derived" formulaes/methods which either needs collecting via actually performing them (eg full-flight tests) or if a partner is willing to hand-hold and disclose them (which they obviously wouldn't, as that exactly what is called IP for such things).


And there-in lies the rub - of course, now try and explain the above to Master-degree in Medieval History, Botany, Anthropology, Pol Sc type MOD Baboons and, dare-say, to some extent to the "executive" cadre of the IAF.
(good-luck finding any non-executive cadre officer beyond a Grp Captain, except maybe a few from Medicine, Accountancy etc - and even one odd from the engineering branch as well).
Just compare that what IN has done to it's executive cadre historically and now, right from the entry stage (recently) itself. But I digress!!

You nailed it.
In my job we have been trying to develop some turbochargers and cooling fans. Even with all the latest codes and tools, we are still struggling. The pain is to be felt to be believed.
The defence labs do develop their own CFD codes, but as you said it needs so much more development. For that they need funds, funds and more funds, in terms of labs, test rigs, consumables, material development, manpower, capable suppliers etc..
As with any corporation, root cause of all failure is Engineering, not leadership or finance or marketing. In the case of Kaveri, these translate to Political leadership, Babus and HAL/Forces. In the end, fault is with Engineering, that is GTRE. If only GTRE did this and that. They had to create this genie without funds, political support, and end user support. Good luck with Safran sharing codes and experience. I cant believe the babus have not learned the lesson. Hot section is something we will have to develop. No other way out. That will happen only if there is leadership will.

[Yagnasri]

Maybe leadership is misguided now in this deal with French fellows. True that MP is knowledgeable, but may not be in a position to understand that he is being misled by babus and French (both are working for the same purpose). Unfortunately, we do not know too many high-level technocrats in politics and most of those who enter politics are like MMS or corrupt. Babus are anyway Babus.

[Austin]

French boost to jet engine plan, Kaveri project being revived

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... 694504.cms

[Indranil]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

[SaiK]

maitya++ else Fr would not say this

Apart from the initial consultancy fees, India may not need to spend on development as the French side has proposed to make the Kaveri flight-worthy within 18 months for integration into the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft by 2020.

Now, they have always faltered on deadlines.. that is besides the point

[vina]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

I had said many many moons ago in the Kaveri thread about two things.

1. The current Kaveri core is too big (bypass ratio too low) and to increase the by pass and decrease core, the TeT will increase.You need the latest tech, tinku sa core, which the M88-3 has. Get that and put it with the current Kaveri LP stage and you have an engine for the LCA (around 90KN).

2. Take materials tech from Snecma, flow it into the Kaveri core (Kabini) and if you put in a new LP stage, you have a 125KN "Ganga". Just the thing for the AMCA .

Peace!

[GeorgeM]

Many moons ago someone who is at the helm of Kaveri development once told my barber that Russia tests showed..
1) aeroelastic related issues between compressor stages that degraded its efficiency. Apparently one set of compressor blades were starving. (This is roughly what I remember now)
2) Hot section issues. (No details)
I am sure GTRE has the capability to resolve the first one. Probably they may have already resolved it, hence the improvement in thrust since then. What my barber told as recent as a month ago is that the hot section issues remain and he does not expect Frenchies to share hot section technology either !
I would be quite surprised if the current hot section makes it into production by 2020 as being projected in the news. It could be that M88 core by 2020, then indigenous core as a follow up. Everybody is happy.

BTW during the Russia tests, the Chinese engine was being tested in the adjacent test cell.

[A Deshmukh]

IMHO,
Kaveri needs to be stabilzed within its design parameters, and then we should design a LCA evolved UCAV - a dispensible bomb/missile mule with Kaveri engine.
This UCAV need not have high performance parameters to support pilots or air superiority.
This UCAV can be manufactured in numbers to boost squadron numbers and aerospace industry.

[GShankar]

If one were to be a guessing person, could one venture a guess that with kaveri as it constitutes now, if mated with LCA, the plane would take off, fly, fire weapons and land?

And if it does, could it be exported to some airforces that have much lower expectations than IAF and countries that have much lower budget than india?

[GeorgeM]

If one were to be a guessing person, could one venture a guess that with kaveri as it constitutes now, if mated with LCA, the plane would take off, fly, fire weapons and land?

And if it does, could it be exported to some airforces that have much lower expectations than IAF and countries that have much lower budget than india?

I am not sure a durability/endurance test on a productionized version has been completed. That itself could take 1-2 yrs. Then you have to certify it for flight/air worthiness. So all these news about 18 months to production etc is pretty hard to imagine.

[prashanth]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

Am a layman regarding aircraft engines, but this is my opinion.
Most likely, they will provide technical inputs to GTRE to make Kaveri (with Kabini) more reliable and flightworthy without any enhancement in performance (T/W ratio and overall weight). GTRE will have to do more testing after implementing modifications. That is the lowest hanging fruit and the best bang for the buck, so far as the French are concerned. Not a bad deal for India either. Hopefully, after this, GTRE will have a working engine to improve upon in future.

[rohitvats]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

Get hold of this look: Restoration of Split Milk by SRN Choudhary. He was the person who set-up and nurtured GTRE. Gives a very good insight into GTRE and why GTRE attempted LCA Kaveri.

Link to Google books to have a look at open sections. Very good information.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=CYw ... &q&f=false

[Bhaskar_T]

Shouldn't this (good) discussion be taken to Kaveri thread?

[nachiket]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

I had said many many moons ago in the Kaveri thread about two things.

1. The current Kaveri core is too big (bypass ratio too low) and to increase the by pass and decrease core, the TeT will increase.You need the latest tech, tinku sa core, which the M88-3 has. Get that and put it with the current Kaveri LP stage and you have an engine for the LCA (around 90KN).

2. Take materials tech from Snecma, flow it into the Kaveri core (Kabini) and if you put in a new LP stage, you have a 125KN "Ganga". Just the thing for the AMCA .

Peace!

Snecma will never part with the materials tech. What do they have to gain from it?

[Indranil]

Get hold of this look: Restoration of Split Milk by SRN Choudhary. He was the person who set-up and nurtured GTRE. Gives a very good insight into GTRE and why GTRE attempted LCA Kaveri.

Link to Google books to have a look at open sections. Very good information.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=CYw ... &q&f=false

Thank you for the link. I went through whatever I could from my current computer. It is fascinating reading. I am banking on Jay to catalogue all the pages from different computers and post it here

[titash]

I really hope that they don't change the Kabini core with the Snecma core in the name of collaboration. They have tried that once. Thankfully, GTRE fought out that farce. What would happen this time? Time will tell.

I had said many many moons ago in the Kaveri thread about two things.

1. The current Kaveri core is too big (bypass ratio too low) and to increase the by pass and decrease core, the TeT will increase.You need the latest tech, tinku sa core, which the M88-3 has. Get that and put it with the current Kaveri LP stage and you have an engine for the LCA (around 90KN).

2. Take materials tech from Snecma, flow it into the Kaveri core (Kabini) and if you put in a new LP stage, you have a 125KN "Ganga". Just the thing for the AMCA .

Peace!

Folks - even if the deal with SNECMA is to use the M88 core replacing Kabini, and essentially make a hybrid Kaveri (like the alleged "Hybrid MMR"), we have an engine that is not truely 100% Indian and can be sanctioned. However the French are the less "sanctions-prone" compared to the US and less "no-spares prone" compared to the Russians. The Mirage 2000's high serviceability rates are testimony to that.

So can we sell the Tejas with an Israeli sensor/weapons package and a semi-French engine? to Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh and Colombia perhaps, but that's not really the point. With this combo, we can probably scale up Tejas production into the 400-500 range like we did with the ALH Dhruv (which incidentally has a French engine too). This will greatly facilitate IAF aircraft availability while giving DRDO/HAL the ability to perform regular sensor/weapons upgrades because we own the blueprints and source codes.

In the life of our nation, does it really matter that the LCA is only 60% Indian? Not even close...name which other IAF fighter is even 5% Indian...I guarantee you its not the MiG-29 or the Mirage-2000 or the Su-30MKI

So why does it even matter if we choose a semi-desi Kaveri over a 100% desi Kaveri today? As long as we can deploy SOME homegrown technologies today in the LCA, its only a matter of 25-50 years before the radar, electro-optical, stealth, and engine technologies are all ours. In 25-50 years, a lot will have changed. The Chinese and Indian economies will rank up there with the US and EU.

So why all the rona-dhona?

JMT.

[ranjan.rao]

No rona dhona, but my hunch is, all this is a fish hook bait with MP trying to see what sticks, in all probability we will get a piece meal order of teens probably without uber cool techs, but probably at friendship prices from DT as a trojan.
MP and NM will probably take the bait as it will buy some leverage from US and breathing space from (i) war, if that comes soon (ii) possibly to help in MII (Both Make/Made) (iii) Further Integrate us in global aero manufacturing

[Vivek K]

90 Teens, 36 Rafales, 80-120 LCA, 50 M2K, 66 Mig-29s, 135 Jags, 270 MKI - Man that is one confused air force!