Kaveri & Aero-Engine: News & Discussion

[shiv]

AM Rajkumar commented 2-3 years ago about Kaveri, "Why don't they just put it in a Tejas and fly it?"

It can be done. It will fly. The actual hurdles are elsewhere

[Austin]

As a lay man perspective what I understand is any new engine that needs to be fit into an aircraft needs to be flight qualified/certified first that would mean running thousand of hours on IL-76 like frame at different speed/altitude and without any issues [ if there is any they need to fix that for good] perhaps even inflight re-ignition test and Kaveri has not reached that stage yet [ from what I read it is short on thrust and had flame out issue on IL-76 hack and they never managed to get out of that my info could be dated though ] post that Engine will be put into the airframe and with number of ground tests & runs and duly cerified by bodies that be would make its first flight.

Without going through the first part the certifying body in India [CEMILI or DGCA what ever they call themself ] wont let Tejas fly with Kaveri engine .....I dont think ADA/DRDO or who ever can just put the Kaveri in Tejas and say lets fly and see , its a risk to aircraft and pilot and they wont be allowed to do that.

Then again Kaveri/Tejas needs to prove its worth running another 1000 plus hours and many test points for all flight condition/speed/AOA/militarypower/blah blah without any issue [ if they find any they will have to fix that for good ] then both engine and aircraft will be cerified for IAF service.

[JayS]

As a lay man perspective what I understand is any new engine that needs to be fit into an aircraft needs to be flight qualified/certified first that would mean running thousand of hours on IL-76 like frame at different speed/altitude and without any issues [ if there is any they need to fix that for good] perhaps even inflight re-ignition test and Kaveri has not reached that stage yet [ from what I read it is short on thrust and had flame out issue on IL-76 hack and they never managed to get out of that my info could be dated though ] post that Engine will be put into the airframe and with number of ground tests & runs and duly cerified by bodies that be would make its first flight.

Without going through the first part the certifying body in India [CEMILI or DGCA what ever they call themself ] wont let Tejas fly with Kaveri engine .....I dont think ADA/DRDO or who ever can just put the Kaveri in Tejas and say lets fly and see , its a risk to aircraft and pilot and they wont be allowed to do that.

Then again Kaveri/Tejas needs to prove its worth running another 1000 plus hours and many test points for all flight condition/speed/AOA/militarypower/blah blah without any issue [ if they find any they will have to fix that for good ] then both engine and aircraft will be cerified for IAF service.

Aim now is/should be to make Kaveri work flawlessly and reliably. Performance does not matter. LCA is decoupled from Kaveri already. Once its debugged GTRE can work on performance. As such dry thrust is OK. Its the wet thrust which is AB issue and is kind of decoupled from the engine, in a sense that it can be worked on independent of the main engine. I don't consider AB issue a big deal at this time. The should really focus on making the core turbofan work. Lets say its not flight worthy to put it in LCA. Obviously its not. Even GE/PW/RR would not put an engine in SE fighter without running it on multi-engine flying test bed. Question is why no testing on IL76 or on MiG-29 in last so many years..? With no testing there is no point even making any changes because we would never know if the changes work or not. As they say, if you try, you "might" fail, if you don't, you will fail "definitely".

[chola]

You cannot mount an engine that has a tendency to throw turbine blades on any test platform. Our material science for the core is simply not at level. It is not the design. I think the latest turbofan concepts are known to GTRE but building those parts conceptionalized is the real difficulty. What SNECMA is doing in “incorporating” the M88 core is making use of French parts. You can’t really use another core and just shove it into Kaveri’s fan and outer tube.

[JayS]

You cannot mount an engine that has a tendency to throw turbine blades on any test platform. Our material science for the core is simply not at level. It is not the design. I think the latest turbofan concepts are known to GTRE but building those parts conceptionalized is the real difficulty. What SNECMA is doing in “incorporating” the M88 core is making use of French parts. You can’t really use another core and just shove it into Kaveri’s fan and outer tube.

Your info seems outdated. In past 3-4yrs I have not seen any report referring to "tendency to throw turbine blades" for Kaveri. A source would be great help, if you can (I see an ancient news item from 2002 mentioning this. A lot has happened since then including flight tests on IL-76, you think Ruskies would have put their IL76 in jeopardy by putting "turbine blade throwing engine" on it..?). Issues are with LPC and AB, AFAIK and multiple sources including conversation with GTRE folks at AI corroborate that.

Kaveri basic gas generator works OK which is evident with by the fact that intended dry thrust is achieved in ground and flight tests and that the core is chosen to power Ghatak. Kavari has quite low TET by today's standard. Material science is not the bottle-neck as such. Kavari doesn't even need any cutting-edge material (by today's standard) or stuff like SCB to get to the designed specs. DS blades are sufficient and is what used in Kaveri. And all the materials needed for Kaveri class engine are easily available it seems. GTRE keeps publishing tenders with all the material specs mentioned in it. Majority of them are standard engine materials now.

[shiv]

Actually I have not seen any reports of Kaveri throwing a turbine blade. I have heard of lack of full power (old news) . High noise (more recent) etc

All this business of SCB/Blisk and composite rotors are all not absolutely essential for a good, efficient running engine. There was also some news about one engine having been run continuously for 1000 plus hours and was still running at the time of that report.

Kaveri is a working engine and we know it has been working for at least 5 years we know from a series of people hearing at aero India and from others. They were going to fit it on the UCAV and there is still a plan to put it on a Tejas. But like a "dead" cockroach that suddenly waves its legs a day after I spray it and leave it lying we get these news snippets and hear nothing further. Same thing happened with Saras. The Saras cockroach waved its legs about 6 months ago

[JayS]

Actually I have not seen any reports of Kaveri throwing a turbine blade. I have heard of lack of full power (old news) . High noise (more recent) etc

All this business of SCB/Blisk and composite rotors are all not absolutely essential for a good, efficient running engine.

Kaveri is a working engine and we know it has been working for at least 5 years we know from a series of people hearing at aero India and from others. They were going to fit it on the UCAV and there is still a plan to put it on a Tejas. But like a "dead" cockroach that suddenly waves its legs a day after I spray it and leave it lying we get these news snippets and hear nothing further. Same thing happened with Saras. The Saras cockroach waved its legs about 6 months ago

Exactly. What we need to concentrate on it making it work reliably. Performance is secondary. Let alone flightworthy engine, In a marine or land based powerplant version Kaveri will neither need T/W ratio nor the A/B. Only the basic turbofan. Damn it doesn't even need to be flight qualified. But we are not working on that as well. We heard about Kaveri test as marine version and IN being interested in it. Later it died a quite death. Never heard about it afterwards.

[chola]

Jay ji, you are right. My data is dated. I pretty much re-gurgitated what I thought I’ve known for years since following the Kaveri for close to two decades now. But had not been diligent in following updates. (Partly out of depression induced by Kaveri along with LCA. lol)

I sort of used Air Marshal Chopra’s article as my primer in a lazy man’s approach to the history but you are correct, the AM referenced the blade issue only from 2002.

http://www.defstrat.com/india%E2%80%99s ... gine-dream

India’s Fighter Engine Dream

Issues Details:
Vol 11 Issue 2 May - Jun 2017
Page No.:
48
Sub Title:
An absorbing History of the Development of Aircraft Engines
Author:
Air Marshal Anil Chopra, PVSM, AVSM, VM, VSM (Retd)

...
In 2002, it was known that the Kaveri had a tendency to “throw” turbine blades, which required securing blades from French engine maker SNECMA.

[shiv]

^^I note that that AM Chopra writes of "enforceable transfer of technology" I think it is high time this myth is erased from the minds of senior people in industry and defence the way it has been erased on BRF.

While I am no metallurgist or engineer calculating internal engine thermodynamics - "technology" is not something that can be "given" like gifting Nano car to someone.

For example - for engine blades there will be a combination of metals that are heated just to the right temp and treated just right. This is a skill that can only be built up by hands on in a foundry and nowadays even that will not work because in th west many of these things will be automated and the parameters are just entered on a console and the alloy is done. There may be "rough blades" that require finishing manually by a chap visually handling each blade and grinding or buffing. This is also "hands on" - someone has to sit on the workfloor and learn by observation and trial and error. People have to do it - and they will be blue collar workers. They will be supervised by someone who knows. That is technology. Another aspect of technology is data on what works and what does not work - recorded in 20-30,000 manual pages. You want 50 Kn, 2 spool engine? then you need inlet diameter of X and Y stages in low pres comp and Z stages in hi pres comp. Temperatures are likely to be #$ degC requiring bla material blades.

This is all stuff that is a matter of "been there, done that" for the big engine makers. Same is true for aircraft designers. Long ago Wingco Suresh told me of meeting Pavel Sukhoi with a panel of HAL people. And one of the latter started speaking of technology, for which Pavel Sukhoi puffed himself up - banged his own chest with his palm and said,"What is technology? I am technology"

This is IMO more true than would seem to be the case. Technology transfer is not papers and reading. It is the human element. It is how the welders weld the seams of a submarine, how the technician grinds down the 3D printed blisk. It is high time senior officials stopped talking this shit about "technology transfer"

For those who were on BRF back then I would like to recall how we celebarted with joy at the prospect of "Deep technology transfer" for Su-30. Yes it came - but not the way we thought. Real technology is the knowledge to create. If AM Chopra does not know that I am not surprised. Our nation is full of people who think that others are magically going to "transfer technology". It cannot be transferred. It has to be built up in house. It's about people with skills.

Even 100,000 man years of work by Indians in Intel designing chips does not give us one clue about how that chip is fabricated. We live in a delusional world. I used to hope that the "younger generation" would do something - but those "younger generation guys" I was thinking of are now middle aged with adolescent kids. We have to teach an even younger gen...just sayin'

[chola]

^^^ Agreed and it is why I want us to build and sell everything that we can build and sell now and not waiting for a glamourous but insanely hard to build turbofan before we fvcking manufacture and market an engine.

We need to build a foundation on what we capable of now. The Kaveri does not require piston to be successful, it is true. But the aviation industry as a whole does. The disciplines of the industry must be built up step by step. If leapfrogging was an easy way to the turbofan, we would done it by now.

[chola]

Read this story. Think of what this means.

Iran, under the harshest of embargos, is producing piston-powered UAVs for the battleground. While we are still farting around with Rustom II with its imported russkie engine.

The Iranians lapped us in the real, practical world with pistons for UAVs and turbojets for trainers and light fighter.

But hey, they don’t have a turban like Kaveri so we still beat them right? In the fvcking lab, yes.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... down-syria

US shoots down second Iran-made armed drone over Syria in 12 days

US says fighter shot drone as it approached outpost near borders of Syria, Iraq, and Jordan

...

In a similar incident on 8 June, an Iranian-made drone of the same kind dropped a bomb near US troops at the same training outpost before it was shot down by a US plane.

[Rakesh]

^^^ Agreed and it is why I want us to build and sell everything that we can build and sell now and not waiting for a glamourous but insanely hard to build turbofan before we fvcking manufacture and market an engine.

We need to build a foundation on what we capable of now. The Kaveri does not require piston to be successful, it is true. But the aviation industry as a whole does. The disciplines of the industry must be built up step by step. If leapfrogging was an easy way to the turbofan, we would done it by now.

I am seeing this in a number of your posts. Before the mods caution you, I would suggest you kindly refrain from typing it any further.

[chola]

Without the GDF, I have become an angrier poster. Will refrain.

[Austin]

Aim now is/should be to make Kaveri work flawlessly and reliably. Performance does not matter. LCA is decoupled from Kaveri already. Once its debugged GTRE can work on performance. As such dry thrust is OK. Its the wet thrust which is AB issue and is kind of decoupled from the engine, in a sense that it can be worked on independent of the main engine. I don't consider AB issue a big deal at this time. The should really focus on making the core turbofan work. Lets say its not flight worthy to put it in LCA. Obviously its not. Even GE/PW/RR would not put an engine in SE fighter without running it on multi-engine flying test bed. Question is why no testing on IL76 or on MiG-29 in last so many years..? With no testing there is no point even making any changes because we would never know if the changes work or not. As they say, if you try, you "might" fail, if you don't, you will fail "definitely".

Kaveri has not reached a stage where it can be tested on a Mig-29 replacing say one of the RD-33 with Kaveri .....even one has to reach that stage ........All this talk about meeting dry thrust and not meeting wet thrust is juggling with words from Certification POV you need to meet the requirement fully or you are not there ....its like stating I can crawl well but cant walk straight means nothing really.

Kaveri for all practical purpose is a Dead Engine not just for the IAF but also for IN GT engine needs you dont see any IN official stating they would replace or use Kaveri-GT for some kind of frigate or corvette.

As Dr Christopher stated in an inverview I posted from F Mag they will work with Safran on Kaveri in new Avtar and other report states it will use New Core of M88 engine but there is nothing concrete yet but talks for past few years , This would be a new Project any ways and if they can make it flight qualified by 2025-2028 it would be Good for us , they can have hope to use in AMCA in some Mk2 model

Yes GTRE/DRDO can still use the exisit kaveri to learn and develop things for experimental purpose and learning curve but that is thats about it .

It is like Dr doing Post Mortem on Dead Body for their own learning it wont make a Corpse go Alive !

[JayS]

Aim now is/should be to make Kaveri work flawlessly and reliably. Performance does not matter. LCA is decoupled from Kaveri already. Once its debugged GTRE can work on performance. As such dry thrust is OK. Its the wet thrust which is AB issue and is kind of decoupled from the engine, in a sense that it can be worked on independent of the main engine. I don't consider AB issue a big deal at this time. The should really focus on making the core turbofan work. Lets say its not flight worthy to put it in LCA. Obviously its not. Even GE/PW/RR would not put an engine in SE fighter without running it on multi-engine flying test bed. Question is why no testing on IL76 or on MiG-29 in last so many years..? With no testing there is no point even making any changes because we would never know if the changes work or not. As they say, if you try, you "might" fail, if you don't, you will fail "definitely".

Kaveri has not reached a stage where it can be tested on a Mig-29 replacing say one of the RD-33 with Kaveri .....even one has to reach that stage ........All this talk about meeting dry thrust and not meeting wet thrust is juggling with words from Certification POV you need to meet the requirement fully or you are not there ....its like stating I can crawl well but cant walk straight means nothing really.


!

So what stage exactly Kaveri is now..? What exactly is needed to get it upto the stage where it can be put in IL76 then MiG29..?

[Austin]

Frankly speaking how does it matter , it is like asking whether the man died 2 hours back or 2 days back.

Kaveri in its present form is dead the only hope is to see DRDO-Safran plan see the light of the day and hope it does.

[maitya]

Kaveri has not reached a stage where it can be tested on a Mig-29 replacing say one of the RD-33 with Kaveri .....even one has to reach that stage ........All this talk about meeting dry thrust and not meeting wet thrust is juggling with words from Certification POV you need to meet the requirement fully or you are not there ....its like stating I can crawl well but cant walk straight means nothing really.


!

So what stage exactly Kaveri is now..? What exactly is needed to get it upto the stage where it can be put in IL76 then MiG29..?

AFAIK and IIRC, there's
a) nothing stopping Kaveri to be put into a IL76 ... has been done before so no issues doing it again.
But having achieved the dry-thrust ratings, there's not much of an value in flight-testing in a IL-76 type test-bed ... GTRE folks would have got enough amount of real-flight data, and thus would have validated/re-calibrated the coore, for the flight-regimes that can be tested in such a platform.
b) IIRC CEMILAC stipulates 2000hrs of ground run (and may include hrs in flight-testing in IL-76 testbed as well, not sure), in the final engine configuration, to be certified to be put into a dual-engine military-platform like a MiG-29/Su-30 etc ... as of circa 2015, last we heard was, that ~800hrs has been achieved.
So no, without achieving those number of hrs Kaveri won't go anywhere near a MiG-29 (or Su-30) kind of platform.

Also IIRC, it requires further ~1000hrs of flight-testing in MiG-29/Su-30 type platform, it will qualify (by CEMILAC) to go anywhere near a single-engine platform, say a LCA TD/PV for further flight-testing.

I'm ofcourse completely unaware as to where we are today wrt achieving these flight-test hours etc.


Also Austinji, there's absolutely no reason why Kaveri/Kabini can't follow the F404 to F414 evolution route and can't be "upgraded" to 100KN class turbofan (say "Ganga" ((c) Vinaji - some of the relevant posts from me can be found here and here.

after all, GE with 70+ years of cutting-edge gas-turbine R&D, design and development, took 10+ years to do the upgrade - not sure how long it will take a GTRE to achieve it.

Do further note, the basic feature of F404 -> F414 "upgrade" is again the same-old same-old "increase thrust by increasing the mass-flow thru core, by enlarging the inlet geometry" etc - the trick however is to maintain (slightly improve) BPR and, the huge/major aspect of maintaining the Thermal-efficiency figures.

That is major issue, and requires decades of back-breaking R&D and Testing iterations, as it requires enhanced OPR and TeT (refer to the Kaveri sticky thread for the OPR vs TeT interplay) which in turn requires large technological "leaps" like,
1) 3rd Gen SCB for LPT
2) Large-chord LPC blade geometry (higher OPR via each Blade-SPR improvements)
3) Improved cooling architecture for LPT/HPT blades (due to higher TeT by ~70-90deg)
etc etc.

OR you may still get a higher thrust rating but sacrifice the Thermal efficiency (so lower SFC etc - a la the Russian turbofans) and force the users to accept sub-par system (and then incrementally improve them - again Russian philosophy) - fat chance of that happening with IAF, though.

[JayS]

Frankly speaking how does it matter , it is like asking whether the man died 2 hours back or 2 days back.

Kaveri in its present form is dead the only hope is to see DRDO-Safran plan see the light of the day and hope it does.

Good evasive answer. If its written off as dead, I want to know on what basis. Because talking to GTRE engineers gives completely different picture, so does reports from S jha.
And engine is never dead as such. You perfect a core and create a family of engines based on it for 3-4 decades to come. Maitya has written a lot of stuff so I dont need to repeate anything on this.

[JayS]

So what stage exactly Kaveri is now..? What exactly is needed to get it upto the stage where it can be put in IL76 then MiG29..?

AFAIK and IIRC, there's
a) nothing stopping Kaveri to be put into a IL76 ... has been done before so no issues doing it again.
But having achieved the dry-thrust ratings, there's not much of an value in flight-testing in a IL-76 type test-bed ... GTRE folks would have got enough amount of real-flight data, and thus would have validated/re-calibrated the coore, for the flight-regimes that can be tested in such a platform.
b) IIRC CEMILAC stipulates 2000hrs of ground run (and may include hrs in flight-testing in IL-76 testbed as well, not sure), in the final engine configuration, to be certified to be put into a dual-engine military-platform like a MiG-29/Su-30 etc ... as of circa 2015, last we heard was, that ~800hrs has been achieved.
So no, without achieving those number of hrs Kaveri won't go anywhere near a MiG-29 (or Su-30) kind of platform.

Also IIRC, it requires further ~1000hrs of flight-testing in MiG-29/Su-30 type platform, it will qualify (by CEMILAC) to go anywhere near a single-engine platform, say a LCA TD/PV for further flight-testing.

I'm ofcourse completely unaware as to where we are today wrt achieving these flight-test hours etc.


Also Austinji, there's absolutely no reason why Kaveri/Kabini can't follow the F404 to F414 evolution route and can't be "upgraded" to 100KN class turbofan (say "Ganga" ((c) Vinaji - some of the relevant posts from me can be found here and here.

after all, GE with 70+ years of cutting-edge gas-turbine R&D, design and development, took 10+ years to do the upgrade - not sure how long it will take a GTRE to achieve it.

Do further note, the basic feature of F404 -> F414 "upgrade" is again the same-old same-old "increase thrust by increasing the mass-flow thru core, by enlarging the inlet geometry" etc - the trick however is to maintain (slightly improve) BPR and, the huge/major aspect of maintaining the Thermal-efficiency figures.

That is major issue, and requires decades of back-breaking R&D and Testing iterations, as it requires enhanced OPR and TeT (refer to the Kaveri sticky thread for the OPR vs TeT interplay) which in turn requires large technological "leaps" like,
1) 3rd Gen SCB for LPT
2) Large-chord LPC blade geometry (higher OPR via each Blade-SPR improvements)
3) Improved cooling architecture for LPT/HPT blades (due to higher TeT by ~70-90deg)
etc etc.

OR you may still get a higher thrust rating but sacrifice the Thermal efficiency (so lower SFC etc - a la the Russian turbofans) and force the users to accept sub-par system (and then incrementally improve them - again Russian philosophy) - fat chance of that happening with IAF, though.

Maitya sahab, it was a rhetorical question.

BTW, if you want to believe what GTRE folks tell in AI, total ground testing is well past 3000hrs. And Kaveri is ready to put it on flight test bed. And they are waiting for MiG29 since 3yrs. Upto you to consider if its credible enough. I personally feel truth is somewhere in between. From all indications, issues are in only some flight regimes, not all. AB issues can be negkected for now, only LPC needs to be focused on. HP systems seems stable.

Even after IL76 test, if any changes are done, how would we know if the changes do work, without flight testing it again..? Anyhow, is 70 odd hours of testing enough..? I simply dont understand how we know Kaveri doesnt work without testing it again in flight..? Definitely some work has been done on it after last time it was flight tested. Since the problems were only uncovered in flight test, it clear that those conditions are not reliably reproduceable on ground. (Also some flight regimes will be only possible on fighter test bed).

F135 has undergone 20000plus hours of testing last time I checked, a significant amount of it in-flight testing. Without large scale testing no engine program will ever succeed.

There is gonna be Turbo GT conference in BLR on 7-8 Dec I think. That would be a good place to find out about Kaveri technical issues. Unfortunately I wont be able to go there.

[chetak]

Aim now is/should be to make Kaveri work flawlessly and reliably. Performance does not matter. LCA is decoupled from Kaveri already. Once its debugged GTRE can work on performance. As such dry thrust is OK. Its the wet thrust which is AB issue and is kind of decoupled from the engine, in a sense that it can be worked on independent of the main engine. I don't consider AB issue a big deal at this time. The should really focus on making the core turbofan work. Lets say its not flight worthy to put it in LCA. Obviously its not. Even GE/PW/RR would not put an engine in SE fighter without running it on multi-engine flying test bed. Question is why no testing on IL76 or on MiG-29 in last so many years..? With no testing there is no point even making any changes because we would never know if the changes work or not. As they say, if you try, you "might" fail, if you don't, you will fail "definitely".

Kaveri has not reached a stage where it can be tested on a Mig-29 replacing say one of the RD-33 with Kaveri .....even one has to reach that stage ........All this talk about meeting dry thrust and not meeting wet thrust is juggling with words from Certification POV you need to meet the requirement fully or you are not there ....its like stating I can crawl well but cant walk straight means nothing really.

Kaveri for all practical purpose is a Dead Engine not just for the IAF but also for IN GT engine needs you dont see any IN official stating they would replace or use Kaveri-GT for some kind of frigate or corvette.

As Dr Christopher stated in an inverview I posted from F Mag they will work with Safran on Kaveri in new Avtar and other report states it will use New Core of M88 engine but there is nothing concrete yet but talks for past few years , This would be a new Project any ways and if they can make it flight qualified by 2025-2028 it would be Good for us , they can have hope to use in AMCA in some Mk2 model

Yes GTRE/DRDO can still use the exisit kaveri to learn and develop things for experimental purpose and learning curve but that is thats about it .

It is like Dr doing Post Mortem on Dead Body for their own learning it wont make a Corpse go Alive !

A much heard refrain from some "design" agencies is that the forces are not even giving us a chance, there has to be some compromise, after all we are doing our best"

I think kaveri flight trials should be done only in dual seater aircraft with the other seat being always occupied by a "designer" who is so loudly crying out for a "chance" and "compromise".

If such a thing can be enforced, I figure that the design will improve on a logarithmic scale.

[shiv]

If such a thing can be enforced, I figure that the design will improve on a logarithmic scale.

I wouldn't bet on it. The idea that all people are afraid of losing their lives is mistaken.The number of people who have experimented on themselves and died is high. But yes it would definitely allow a test flight. I think the Kaveri is flyable

[Austin]

Frankly speaking how does it matter , it is like asking whether the man died 2 hours back or 2 days back.

Kaveri in its present form is dead the only hope is to see DRDO-Safran plan see the light of the day and hope it does.

Good evasive answer. If its written off as dead, I want to know on what basis. Because talking to GTRE engineers gives completely different picture, so does reports from S jha.
And engine is never dead as such. You perfect a core and create a family of engines based on it for 3-4 decades to come. Maitya has written a lot of stuff so I dont need to repeate anything on this.

I havent seen any single DRDO official in any recent interview talking about any further progress on exisiting kaveri be it on Test Bed IL_76 or on fighter , Dr Christopher spoke about reviving kaveri via Safran but this would still be some time to go before they agree .....Remember we are reading a lot about French coming in for Kaveri rescue for past 2-3 years but nothing has been signed on paper yet even news report of IAF apprehensive about this as no good technology was coming from French on this.

As far as I can see Kaveri in present from was no good for Tejas long time back and it still is no good for Navy for their GT Engine , All we see is DRDO hoping that Kaveri with better thrust would happen with Safran using M88 Core lets see how this shape up and in what time frame

[Indranil]

But deducing that Kaveri is dead from that is be grossly wrong. Just head over to DRDO's tender site and see for your self, the number of tenders for parts they are issuing. They are building a new engine around some existing core for aure

[chola]

It would a massive waste to simply drop the Kaveri. See what the French come up with for the turbofan while GTRE can make use of the Kaveri’s GTX-35 turbojet core. Use it for cruise missles, UAVs or trainers.

[chetak]

It would a massive waste to simply drop the Kaveri. See what the French come up with for the turbofan while GTRE can make use of the Kaveri’s GTX-35 turbojet core. Use it for cruise missles, UAVs or trainers.

It's an expensive learning curve. Nothing has been wasted. At least now, people know what not to do.

One can only hope that institutional memory has been sensitized accordingly and also up dated.

[GopiD]

https://twitter.com/manoj_niketa/status ... 8326987777

[JayS]

So apparently some thinking is going on, on having a indigenous flying test bed. But they will be "soon" forming a committee to look into the matter. God knows how long will it take. I hope DRDO doesn't take "indigenous" too seriously and get down to build one from scratch if they can help it. First priority should be to get it ASAP. Buy second-hand if you can get one, or get one built by one of the foreign pvt companies (not only OEMs but, seems there are other 3rd party companies who can convert a second hand jet airliner in FTB, at least one in US). If only its denied outright, build one in India own our own.

[arvin]

Borrow 1 747 from Air India and convert into flying test bed. This single act will wipe off all bad karma of Air India and help it attain moksh.

[Rishi_Tri]

Borrow 1 747 from Air India and convert into flying test bed. This single act will wipe off all bad karma of Air India and help it attain moksh.

Dont quite know about Air India but the 747 shall definitely attain Moksh.

But not a bad idea at all. Use it for Kaveri, Laser Weapon, AWACS and what not.

As to Kaveri, if Jugaad can run all over North India and very well do the job of Case New Holland, Mahindra; Kaveri definitely has a space. All about willingness.

As to CEMILAC mandated test standards, one is testing something for the first time so some standards can be relaxed or in other words, enough risk taken.

[Pratyush]

Wake me up when kaveri flies. I have given up on it. We seem quite content to plod on but never reach a destination. Since 2008 when kaveri was delinked from LCA and to 2017. No major progress has been made in domestic engine. I guess I should be happy with the fact that GTRE was also starved of funds and resources it needed to get the job done.

But just get the dammit thing in the air use one of the first prototypes of lca if we must. But mere it fly.

[Will]

Would certainly like to know more on the engine that is being developed with Rolls Royce. Think there are two programs going on . One with Snecma to fix the kaveri and the other with Rolls Royce that will power the AMCA. I think we are hedging our bets here since uncle is reluctant to share engine tech. Saurav Jha has mentioned that there are a couple of programs going on.

[JayS]

Would certainly like to know more on the engine that is being developed with Rolls Royce. Think there are two programs going on . One with Snecma to fix the kaveri and the other with Rolls Royce that will power the AMCA. I think we are hedging our bets here since uncle is reluctant to share engine tech. Saurav Jha has mentioned that there are a couple of programs going on.

I think that was DDM. I think DRDO is talking to everyone for possible JV. Someone just blew one such talk out of proportion.

One program for making flightworthy Kaveri and a dry version for Ghatak is pending approval. All other things are just half-baked proposal or vaporware.

[Cybaru]

Borrow 1 747 from Air India and convert into flying test bed. This single act will wipe off all bad karma of Air India and help it attain moksh.

Yep,

Instead of waiting on 1l-76 bird. Get a western plane and get it up and running ourselves. Do the mod ourselves. I think we can do this. If you want it cheap, find a 5 year old 747-200 with 30% of life left. It should serve us well for next 20-30 years.

http://aviationweek.com/awin/rolls-royc ... w-test-bed

[JayS]

Borrow 1 747 from Air India and convert into flying test bed. This single act will wipe off all bad karma of Air India and help it attain moksh.

Yep,

Instead of waiting on 1l-76 bird. Get a western plane and get it up and running ourselves. Do the mod ourselves. I think we can do this. If you want it cheap, find a 5 year old 747-200 with 30% of life left. It should serve us well for next 20-30 years.

http://aviationweek.com/awin/rolls-royc ... w-test-bed

After 5yrs, it would have barely used 25% of its life. Even a 20yr old aircraft is sufficient for this purpose. And will be damn cheap.

[abhik]

IIRC the US flying anti ballistic missile laser used an ex Air India 747.

[viveks]

After all these yrs...I guess this is a dead project. Just an exhibition of an un-workable idea.

[Gyan]

Or an old 4 ENGINED Airbus 330? Ask German help to modify it as engine test platform

[Cybaru]

If we are going to have a class of engines like Kaveri-Ghatak, Kaveri88,100,120,144 we better get our own test bed. Otherwise it is not going to be possible to go to russia for every test. Maybe it makes sense to work with both RR and Safran for multi engine lines. (Sorry NRao, I added RR to the mix also!-Maybe I want both of them to become rich off our backs! )

[JayS]

Alright. Some snippets related to Aero Engines from Parliamentary Committee report on defense.

The Committee had recommended as under: -
'The Committee desire that infrastructure to test aero-engines should also be
created within the country so that flying testing of engines can be done in a timely
manner without carrying the engine to a foreign country and finding availability of
slot testing agency etc.'

MoD response:
1 'The design improvement and validation of aero engine components and
modules through testing is a continuous activity to enhance and
demonstrate engine performance and reliability. At present, only limited
aerodynamic and structural testing can be conducted within the country.
Hence, the required component testing facilities at an estimated cost of
Rs.1330 crore are planned to be established by DRDO at Rajanakunte,
Bengaluru for development of Ghatak engine and all future generation aero
engines.

2 The existing Fan & Compressor Test Facility at Gas Turbine Research
Establishment (GTRE) has inadequate capacity and has become obsolete.
To carry out testing of Fan & Compressor for existing and future generation
gas turbine engine programmes of GTRE, it is essential to have a dedicated
Fan & Compressor test facility at GTRE. GTRE is working out the budgetary
cost of this facility to be established ‘on turnkey basis’ with an objective to
initiate EPC approval by end of Oct 2016.

3 DRDO is planning to establish a twin test cell at GTRE to carry out the
performance testing of gas turbine engines upto 130 kN thrust class. The
proposed engine test cells will cater for performance and endurance test
requirements of the present and future engines. One of the test cell will
have the capability of testing engine with thrust vector nozzle. The cost of
establishing this test cell (including the building) is estimated to be Rs.300
crore. GTRE has published a Global RFI for setting up of twin test cell in
July. Response to RFI is expected by end Aug 2016.

4 Boeing Inc. USA has offered to establish a High Altitude Engine Test Facility
(HAETF) of 90kN capacity in India for testing Gas turbine engine as an
offset obligation in C17 Globemaster Acquisition Programme of MoD. US
Government is requested to issue necessary approval (licence), when M/s.
Boeing submits Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA) for HAETF, as
Boeing needs to complete the offset credits against the subject programme.
For this purpose, DRDO has acquired 100 acres of land at NagarjunaSagar,
Telangana.

5 DRDO is studying the indigenous Flying Test Bed (FTB) requirements, for
which a Joint Committee consisting of members from DRDO, IAF, HAL and
DGAQA will be constituted.'

During the course of deliberations, the Committee expressed apprehension over
the perennial delay in the development of the indigenous Kaveri engine to meet the
requirement of LCA which was sanctioned way back in 1989. The Committee was
informed by the Defence Secretary that a total amount of Rs. 2100 crore had been spent
on this Project till date. {out of 28xxCr Sanctioned} The Committee was also apprised by the representatives of
DRDO of the current status of the Project and the fact that solutions were being evolved
with support of some experts within the country as well as outside for the completion of
this project

About the second project proposal with new funding that we have known for quite a while now. Its not clear if PMO/CCS havs approved the project or not. I think its still pending.

Kaveri Engine Development Project completed two important milestones i.e. altitude
testing and Flying Test Bed (FTB) trials during the year 2009-10 and 2010-11
respectively. As on date, a total of 2687 hours of engine testing have been completed
since inception of the project (1989). {I have seen slightly higher number elsewhere} The project technical activities are continuing
with the approval of Hon’ble RM within project cost ceiling of Rs 2105 crore.

Subsequent to the deployment of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ with General
Electric (GE) engines, DRDO decided to power an Indian Unmanned Combat Air
Vehicle (UCAV) ‘Ghatak’ with Kaveri ‘dry’ engine (without afterburner system) at an
estimated cost of Rs. 2652 crore and PDC of 84 months from project sanction.
Accordingly, DRDO submitted a project proposal. The Hon’bleRakshaMantri and
Ministry of Finance approved the proposal. The same was submitted to the Office of
the Prime Minister (PMO), prior to consideration of Cabinet Committee of Security
(CCS).

The Office of Prime Minister (PMO) constituted an Independent Committee, consisting
of Dr. R. Chidambaram (Principal Scientific Advisor), Dr. V. K. Saraswat (Member, NITI
Ayog) and Dr. K. Radhakrishnan (Former Secretary, Department of Space) to review
the project proposal on the feasibility and desirability of the Ghatak aircraft and engine
programmes. The Report of this Committee has been submitted to the PMO for
approval prior to submission to CCS. The Committee recommended ‘in-principle’
approval of UCAV ‘Ghatak’ development programme and immediate sanction of
Ghatak (Kaveri ‘dry’) engine project with PDC of 84 months from sanction at a project
cost of Rs.2652 crore.

This project proposal contains two segments, the first segment being the development
of Kaveri engine flight demonstration with Flying Test Bed (FTB) trials in IL-76 aircraft
and the second segment for the development of Kaveri ‘dry’ engine for powering
UCAV ‘Ghatak’. In order to meet this challenging task of aero engine development,
DRDO has proposed to seek assistance from world’s reputed engine houses for joint
development.

Note that though the report is from 2017, the replies by MoD contain status as of late 2015 or early 2016, it seems.

[Will]

Wake me up when kaveri flies. I have given up on it. We seem quite content to plod on but never reach a destination. Since 2008 when kaveri was delinked from LCA and to 2017. No major progress has been made in domestic engine. I guess I should be happy with the fact that GTRE was also starved of funds and resources it needed to get the job done.

But just get the dammit thing in the air use one of the first prototypes of lca if we must. But mere it fly.

Unless there is a national project for engines just like the IGDMP, dont think we are going to get anywhere with propulsion. The Chinese are investing billions in just jet engines. What are we investing? "Peanuts"! Today India is able to develop most missiles. All thanks to the IGDMP. It was a steep learning curve with a lot of setbacks . But thats how R&D works . For every success there will be a hundred failures. There should be a similar national program for propulsion systems. Lets try and make a list of what is needed. A start below. Add as you see fit.

1) A 90+ kn jet engine
2) A 130 kn jet engine
3)A jet engine for civilian aircraft
4) An engine for tanks
5) Propulsion systems for ships- Destroyers/Frigates/Corvettes
6)Propulsion systems for submarines
6) Scramjets
7) Ramjets
8 ) Nuclear propulsion system for aircraft carriers