Kaveri & Aero-Engine: News & Discussion

[Rakesh]

From Manu Pubby. The same reporter who mentioned that the GTRE-Safran JV failed. What is surprising about that report and this new one, is that only he has reported this. No other Indian or foreign journalist has reported this. Failure of such an important JV would have been all over the news.

But to be fair...Safran - like any other engine company - would never sell the hot section (i.e. the core) to any nation. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

[Indranil]

Manu is a good reporter. But, that headline is garbage.

[Indranil]

I wish people like Maitya ji, JayS, Agupta ji wrote an article about the development of aero engines in India. Compared the same with successful projects abroad and bring out how a ToT is can at best be termed as a penny wise, pound foolish idea.

[Prem Kumar]

Kaveri is the kind of project that needs to be monitored at the PMO level. Bring the best brains in the country: IITs, ISRO, DRDO, Industry etc. Treat it like the Manhattan project (or our very own Cryogenic engine).

The people involved must be given liberal funding & zero red tape. Completely new organization with new people and 1 mission

This must receive Modi's personal commitment like Gaganyaan. Who knows - we might even do it within his 2nd term. We are not starting from scratch.

[chola]

Not the first time. Has happened before for example look for news from 2008 on this. Supposedly IAF shot down proposal to make M88 core based proposal that time.

Thanks, Saar. I had no idea it was a recurring theme. I always thought it was an offset to the Rafale deal.

[Raghunathgb]

Safran is now struggling to fulfill offset obligations of nearly 580 million euros. What options do they have?

[nam]

So we don't want to give 500M to Safran for the deal, that is fine.

We also don't want to spend 500M to refine Kaveri.

Fundamentally we don't want to spend money, but want a tech, which is national treasure in the countries who have them.

We are delusional.

[chola]

I wish people like Maitya ji, JayS, Agupta ji wrote an article about the development of aero engines in India. Compared the same with successful projects abroad and bring out how a ToT is can at best be termed as a penny wise, pound foolish idea.

Is there any successful project abroad out there? I guess you have to go back to the Russians being offered the RR Nene. All western jet engines have roughly the same origin in RR enhanced with German tech spoils after WWII.

Outside the goras, there are only the chini WP series of turbojets in the J-6/J-7 (copies of the Russian Tumansky's) and WS-series turbofans (all complete failures until the WS-10), the Iranian RE of the J-85 turbojet called the Owj and the Japanese turbofans for their F-1 and T-4 fighter/trainers and their P1 and transports.

Japan is a close partner of the Western alliance and have access to Amreeki tech like the Swedes. It is a double-edge sword though. The Japanese engines are never anything other than niche products since their core aircraft F-15, F-35, etc. are always Amreeki planes with Amreeki engines.

This stuff is literally controlled by less than a handful of nations. There will be no real TOT. If you want this magic, you need to do it by hook or crook (like the chinis or Iranians with RE) or pour in far more than $600M and carry the Kaveri over the finishing line.

The truth is we've done something very few nations are able to do in the Kaveri. We should pour in billions to finish it.

[kit]

I am certain there is going to be NO more Raffy orders unless Snecma et all plays ball on engine tech and France sticks to its end of the bargain regarding offsets. How they are going to do it will be keenly watched.

[Vips]

Snecma will wiggle out of this one by proposing investment in a engine overhaul facility in India and the babudom will claim India will earn foreign exchange by servicing all the M series engines with other air forces too.

[nam]

Do we have any article or reports on what exactly is the issue with Kaveri? I understand it is heavier by 100kg than required.

Are we having issues increasing thrust because it has DS blades? or the there are stability concerns with the engine? Are we not able to create the required pressure with the hot section of the engine?

DMRL seems to have the tech to create single crystal blades. So this is not something we want from France.

There are some reports, that the current version is flight worthy, although it has lower thrust.

[habal]

I wish people like Maitya ji, JayS, Agupta ji wrote an article about the development of aero engines in India. Compared the same with successful projects abroad and bring out how a ToT is can at best be termed as a penny wise, pound foolish idea.

I think Maitya has done a good job so far in corralling and summarizing where Kaveri seems to be. From what he reposted recently, so far we believed that the issues were outside the core (LPC, A/B) Occam's razor - augmented by that 1 slide from SAFRAN - says the M88 core Technology (not the reuse of the exact same physical design) is what SAFRAN is offering. And this lines up with the big silence on the marinization plans as well unfortunately - if it was just the A/B no reason that should slow it down.

The lack of transparency from GTRE is both galling and self-destructive..and it makes any documentation effort challenging.

Typical Indian govt organisation, entire world by now knows what the problem with kaveri is except for Indians themselves. GoI is most successful in keeping secrets from Indians, with the rest of the world they are not so successful.

I have for years had these questions about kaveri:

1. Is the basic issue in productionizing turbines.
2. Is the issue in sustaining 79 kn thrust above a few seconds. Screech ?
3. What is state of the HPC and LPC ? Are they performing upto expectations.
4. How is the hot section of the core performing ?
5. Why no flying test bed yet ?
6. Why no high altitude simulator wind tunnel yet ?

All these may have compelling reasons for being kept secret but I am yet to be convinced those reasons are anything above or greater than internal politics at gtre where people are trying to shift blame for failures and appropriate for themselves any credit for succeses thus far.

[Indranil]

Just saying a very capable private company has been trying to make 1 kN engine for the last 4 years without success.

Nobody has stopped the private sector from developing a world class engine of any power. There is simply no initiative for it from any side.

[Cain Marko]

Frankly my biggest concern is getting an engine that India has some control over or at least an engine which others have no control over. How that is achieved is secondary.

Ideally I would think a two track approach would be useful. Get on with the French for short term results AND invest in local R&D for long term results.

[chola]

As I was researching on twitter archives, I came these tweets from Saurav Jha who as many of you may know I consider one of the better if not most insightful Indian defense reporters around:

Saurav Jha
@SJha1618
The Kaveri engine performed for 57 hours continuously during tests in Russia, whereas the Chinese WS-10 could not.
9:58 PM · Jan 25, 2015·Twitter Web Client

Saurav Jha
@SJha1618

The Chinese are making progress with the WS-10 turbofan family. You would note, they produced 300 units of this engine even before it
...
was really ready. They pushed pirate flankers into production, with their own sub-systems despite issues bcoz they know mass manufacturing
...
is more important than endless refinement at the prototype stage. Many things ultimately get fixed through production improvements.

The Kaveri was in extensive tests at the Russian Gromov complex between 2004 and 2007. It was at this time, the chinis were there too, testing their WS-10.

We were actually ahead of them at that time.

But today there are hundreds of WS-10 powered frontline PLAAF/PLAN aircraft but the Kaveri remains in testing.

As Saurav said, the chinis built 300 WS-10 even before it was ready, working out the kinks through mass production. This is the rapid iteration strategy we see everywhere in chini production. Building lots of examples each incorporating changes from the previous until they have something usable. The pirate flanker that Jha sir talks about is the J-11B which was inducted in 2009, a few years after their Russian tests.

If we had deployed the same strategy I have little doubt that the Kaveri would be flying today. The chinis did have the advantage of a twin-engine aircraft that can take a new engine more safely. But we could have converted a series of Fulcrums. The Kaveri is the same class and roughly the same size as the RD-33.

Maybe it is never too late. We might just need to bite the bullet and spend the billions needed to finish the project. This thing is already close to the finish line. Spend money to convert some MiG-29s and then prepare for in the AMCA. We can have a dual track AMCA project with one Kaveri variant and another with a phoren engine.

There only a handful of nations who can even get an engine into a flight test like the Kaveri. It would be a travesty to give up on it because we are only willing to spend $600M. We are spending $2.6 BILLION for just 24 helicopters in the MH60R (great aircraft, just making a point.)

[chetak]

As I was researching on twitter archives, I came these tweets from Saurav Jha who as many of you may know I consider one of the better if not most insightful Indian defense reporters around:

Saurav Jha
@SJha1618
The Kaveri engine performed for 57 hours continuously during tests in Russia, whereas the Chinese WS-10 could not.
9:58 PM · Jan 25, 2015·Twitter Web Client

Saurav Jha
@SJha1618

The Chinese are making progress with the WS-10 turbofan family. You would note, they produced 300 units of this engine even before it
...
was really ready. They pushed pirate flankers into production, with their own sub-systems despite issues bcoz they know mass manufacturing
...
is more important than endless refinement at the prototype stage. Many things ultimately get fixed through production improvements.

The Kaveri was in extensive tests at the Russian Gromov complex between 2004 and 2007. It was at this time, the chinis were there too, testing their WS-10.

We were actually ahead of them at that time.

But today there are hundreds of WS-10 powered frontline PLAAF/PLAN aircraft but the Kaveri remains in testing.

As Saurav said, the chinis built 300 WS-10 even before it was ready, working out the kinks through mass production. This is the rapid iteration strategy we see everywhere in chini production. Building lots of examples each incorporating changes from the previous until they have something usable. The pirate flanker that Jha sir talks about is the J-11B which was inducted in 2009, a few years after their Russian tests.

If we had deployed the same strategy I have little doubt that the Kaveri would be flying today. The chinis did have the advantage of a twin-engine aircraft that can take a new engine more safely. But we could have converted a series of Fulcrums. The Kaveri is the same class and roughly the same size as the RD-33.

Maybe it is never too late. We might just need to bite the bullet and spend the billions needed to finish the project. This thing is already close to the finish line. Spend money to convert some MiG-29s and then prepare for in the AMCA. We can have a dual track AMCA project with one Kaveri variant and another with a phoren engine.

There only a handful of nations who can even get an engine into a flight test like the Kaveri. It would be a travesty to give up on it because we are only willing to spend $600M. We are spending $2.6 BILLION for just 24 helicopters in the MH60R (great aircraft, just making a point.)

something doesn't sit quite right with that quoted $600M figure.

it is a fallacy to assume that the reason for the slow progress of the kaveri was the funding. That would be like missing the woods for the trees.

at some time one should appreciate the glaring fact that the guys involved just couldn't cut the mustard. It would have been much much cheaper to have sought a consultancy at that time rather than let fragile egos dominate.

flying test beds and other very expensive facilities would not help in such a situation.

BTW, consider this fact without bias. A lot of the guys posting on this thread, being otherwise qualified, had they decided to take the DRDO entrance exam in their time, could very easily have wound up as "scientists", no

Also, haven't the pakis insisted on having only russki engines for some of their cheeni planes because the cheeni engines couldn't hack it.

aren't these the very same pakis who are into humping poor river dolphins who have refused to accept some cheeni engine.

and so, engine wise, even with the almost unlimited funding, the cheenis aren't really doing all that great either.

chola garu,

Some time, when you can, take a look at how the cheenis initially started out with the sheynang MiGs and how their perseverance has gotten them from there to here.

this is one lesson that we never bothered to learn from them and had we had done so, we could have done something productive, if only we had followed a similar path.

que sera sera.

[nam]

If the issue was ego of some of the team members, how did Kaveri achieve 79KN thrust? which is greater than M88!

And it does not even use SC blades! If we were not close to achieve M88 level thrust, the French would not never agreed to collaborate.

The sad part of the Kaveri saga, is there is no clarity on what is the actual issue with kaveri. I am not sure if the political leaders, who will ultimately make the decision on money, know the story either.

[chetak]

If the issue was ego of some of the team members, how did Kaveri achieve 79KN thrust? which is greater than M88!

And it does not even use SC blades! If we were not close to achieve M88 level thrust, the French would not never agreed to collaborate.

The sad part of the Kaveri saga, is there is no clarity on what is the actual issue with kaveri. I am not sure if the political leaders, who will ultimately make the decision on money, know the story either.

the french would help you to design a orange juice powered jet engine just as long as you paid their outrageous prices.

they sold the exocet to the britshits and to the argentineans at the same time during the falkland war. They had a clear conscience then because they have no conscience at all, just like all good businessmen.

were you perhaps expecting that they would have changed their spots in the meantime.

The politicos react only to confidence and they all like tech leaders who will deliver successfully as advertised and also take full responsibility for the occasional failure.

how do you think that APJ Abdul Kalam was so successful in tackling politicos and getting them to unbelt the funds he needed. He was undoubtedly an exemplary technocrat, but at the same time, he was a better politician than many professional politicos in his time.

Is there anyone like APJ Abdul Kalam visible anywhere on the scientific horizon today.

BTW, the kaveri is still test bench bound after decades while the M88 has been airborne for many years now and quite reliably at that.

Also, rest assured that the french, as well as the russkis, know what is exactly wrong with the kaveri but neither one is going to tell you because they both want to sell aero engines to India.

the market is too big for them to pass up.

the example of the cryogenic engine as well as the vikas engine is still very fresh in everyone's memory and that scares both the frenchies as well as the russkies no end.

[nam]

M88 is flying is because the French wanted a 75KN engine, as Rafale is twin engine. There is no lack of thrust issue, nor they have issue of SC tech.

Kaveri is in test bed, because our target is 89KN for a Single Engine LCA. If LCA was twin engine, Kaveri would probably be flying as well.

The french are selling us the hot section with SC blade, off the shelf in "TOT", which they probably believe we haven't achieved yet.

They are hardly doing a favor, in fact being very guarded.

[Kanson]

First, We are not buying literally & figuratively whatever france wants to sell us.

2. We have taken help from france so far in assessment or aduit of the work/progress so far we achieved in Kaveri.

3. In reporting, there are many gaps. Everyone want to break the news or fill the newspaper columns. Nothing more than that

Finally, if we want more clarification or know to our exact progress, we have to wait to hear from official channel. So patience is need of the hour.

[chetak]

M88 is flying is because the French wanted a 75KN engine, as Rafale is twin engine. There is no lack of thrust issue, nor they have issue of SC tech.

Kaveri is in test bed, because our target is 89KN for a Single Engine LCA. If LCA was twin engine, Kaveri would probably be flying as well.

The french are selling us the hot section with SC blade, off the shelf in "TOT", which they probably believe we haven't achieved yet.

why couldn't a lighter LCA have been developed to incorporate the kaveri, if thrust was the only issue.

The reliability of the single engine powering a fighter needs to be a lot higher than what has been demoed by the kaveri so far.

what the french are selling us has not been decided at all at this time. core is just one of the options that some people of one lobby are looking at.

What would we do with a dead end, no growth potential, hot section, if it turns out to be one.

do we go back to someone again for the next engine/core/hot section to power a larger aircraft already in the design pipeline.

egos and people who can cut the mustard are both in the toxic mix.

[Raghunathgb]

Let French declare that they are ready to give TOT for hot section. Till then I request members to stop assuming that there is a TOT offered for the same.

French are not going to give us TOT for SCB.period.

[chetak]

Let French declare that they are ready to give TOT for hot section. Till then I request members to stop assuming that there is a TOT offered for the same.

French are not going to give us TOT for SCB.period.

the french are not going to give you any TOT to kill their own market.

we already have the SCB tech in India.

Multiple agencies are working on the SCBs at this time

the hot section is much more than mere SCBs alone.

also, the million dollar question is who is going to actually design the Kaveri SCB and the blisk to which it is going to be mated.

WHO

or is all the hot section / core talk just to cover up this very crucial deficiency.

[Raghunathgb]

I will wait for sourav jha article on Kaveri engine. That will give the exact picture where we are. We have advanced in scb by cracking some of the technologies used in it.

I still think this offer has only come because we are probably nearing completion.

[chetak]

I will wait for sourav jha article on Kaveri engine. That will give the exact picture where we are. We have advanced in scb by cracking some of the technologies used in it.

I still think this offer has only come because we are probably nearing completion.

sourav jha does not have access to high level sources.

With MAD around no one in the know is going to talk to anyone like jha who will then promptly tweet or write about it. Hara kiri.

with all the rafale nonsense peddled by pappu, all sources have completely dried up.

the provisions of the official secrets act can get one many years in prison.

[chetak]

I will wait for sourav jha article on Kaveri engine. That will give the exact picture where we are. We have advanced in scb by cracking some of the technologies used in it.

I still think this offer has only come because we are probably nearing completion.

Raghunathgb ji

your own office will be able to give you a better update than sourav jha ever could.

[Prasad]

Multiple agencies are working on the SCBs at this time

Who all?

[chetak]

Multiple agencies are working on the SCBs at this time

Who all?

some names are in the public domain and some are not.

[nam]

why couldn't a lighter LCA have been developed to incorporate the kaveri, if thrust was the only issue.

The reliability of the single engine powering a fighter needs to be a lot higher than what has been demoed by the kaveri so far.

I think we are, in form of UCAV Ghatak.

No arguments about the need for a reliable engine. Building one requires thousands of hours of testing .. means investing money. Even if there is thrust deficiency, we should be flight testing Kaveri in a double engine test bed.

If our SCB tech cannot handle higher temp, than currently in Kaveri, then fundamentally it is a dead end tech.

[chetak]

why couldn't a lighter LCA have been developed to incorporate the kaveri, if thrust was the only issue.

The reliability of the single engine powering a fighter needs to be a lot higher than what has been demoed by the kaveri so far.

I think we are, in form of UCAV Ghatak.

No arguments about the need for a reliable engine. Building one requires thousands of hours of testing .. means investing money. Even if there is thrust deficiency, we should be flight testing Kaveri in a double engine test bed.

If our SCB tech cannot handle higher temp, than currently in Kaveri, then fundamentally it is a dead end tech.

SCBs can handle higher temps provided that the cooling channels are designed properly and manufacturing is done accurately with extremely close tolerances.

[chola]

something doesn't sit quite right with that quoted $600M figure.

it is a fallacy to assume that the reason for the slow progress of the kaveri was the funding. That would be like missing the woods for the trees.

at some time one should appreciate the glaring fact that the guys involved just couldn't cut the mustard. It would have been much much cheaper to have sought a consultancy at that time rather than let fragile egos dominate.

flying test beds and other very expensive facilities would not help in such a situation.

BTW, consider this fact without bias. A lot of the guys posting on this thread, being otherwise qualified, had they decided to take the DRDO entrance exam in their time, could very easily have wound up as "scientists", no

Also, haven't the pakis insisted on having only russki engines for some of their cheeni planes because the cheeni engines couldn't hack it.

aren't these the very same pakis who are into humping poor river dolphins who have refused to accept some cheeni engine.

and so, engine wise, even with the almost unlimited funding, the cheenis aren't really doing all that great either.

chola garu,

Some time, when you can, take a look at how the cheenis initially started out with the sheynang MiGs and how their perseverance has gotten them from there to here.

this is one lesson that we never bothered to learn from them and had we had done so, we could have done something productive, if only we had followed a similar path.

que sera sera.

Chetak ji, I always appreciate your hard-edge answers!

But don't you think in this case GTRE personnel had done enough according to the circumstances?

Jet engine technology are state secrets in the few nations that have it. The fact that it ran for 57 hours continuously is an achievement that can built upon don't you think? If the WS-10 which couldn't run for 57 hours was put into production then the Kaveri should have been as well.

I believe money was and is an issue even if, as you suggested, it was more than 600M. We have seen nothing in way of pre-production models and testbeds that shows us much money was spent. With the WS-10 we saw their Russian tests, then a chini Il-76 testbed and finally a J-11 testbed with an AL-31 in one nacelle and a WS-10 in the other. From what I read, there were many pre-production models and variants to get the WS-10 to where it is today.

On the Paki rejection, there is one big caveat: Cheen's air forces do not fly a medium-size engine that the JF-17 uses. They are all heavies in the J-10, J-11/15/16 and J-20. The WS-13 offered to the PAF is an first iteration one-off with no support from the PLAAF or PLAN so it is not surprising they stuck with the RD-93 which is a late variant of the long established RD-33. The Pakis are talking about the WS-19 (being developed for the FC-31) for their latter JF-17 blocks and their "5th Gen."

That said, it is obvious chini engine tech will be behind Russian (who in turn are behind the western goras) simply because you need time and money in this industry and the Russians had put in decades more time and more money than Cheen. But in turbofans, we and the chini were peers in 2004. We with our Kaveri and they with their WS-10. We were on a similar path then.

But you are absolutely correct about the MiGs from Shenyang. I wrote about this before. The chinis built thousands of short duration throw-away turbojet engines for their J-6 and J-7 fighters. They already had an engine industry though not a turbofan one. We skipped the turbojet stage completely though we've built hundreds of MiG-21s and MiG-27s of our own.

So in the turbofan contest, we had the Kaveri which was supported by a lab, GRTE, while Cheen had an entire industry behind the WS-10.

Which brings us back to the issue of funding. I think GTRE did exemplary work considering it was basically one research institute. We should have spent the money to build an infrastructure and then an industry around them and the Kaveri.

[chetak]

@chola ji,

the hans copied everything for their shenyang MiGs but in the end, they simply couldn't master the russki metallurgy.

consequently, the shenyang copies of the MiGs had a total life of about 120-150 hours and they actually stole the MiGs from the russkies because at the time the russkies and the hans were not even on speaking terms

over the years, we had so many aircraft and engines handed to us on a platter, so to speak, and yet we couldn't do jack with them.

HAL and DRDO situated cheek by jowl in bangalore. They barely even spoke to one another.

In fact, what is even more ironical is that the engine division and GTRE share a common wall.

[venkat_r]

Do not think in India any govt or private companies are at a stage to have any competition. India has to follow what US did, create a local base first. US invested in 2to 3 companies by giving TOT to make engines.

HAL/DRDO/GTRE can give the existing simple engines to be manufactured by private companies for both civil and military engines - it takes a decade or two for these companies to absorb and mature in the technology try newer sub parts first and slowly evolve to handle more complex stuff. But the initiative has to be from the govt institutions to help incubate these companies and also make them technology rich and profitable by giving them orders for enough numbers to make them viable.

It is pity to think that we will develop the best qualified engines without going through the rigor and putting in the required resources. That is the reason why the barrier of entry is so high in this.

Not that making the Kaveri is unlikely, but the odds are not in favor, using the core and non afterburner versions for other use cases, like UCAV and using this to stand up some strong private/public firms to allow them to absorb the technology would be a good idea.

Do not know enough about the Seneca deal, but if it is any bit favorable and helps us move the needle and to get some folks get more knowledgeable and have a desi version of an engine that can be used in MWF and AMCA, then a chance has to be taken. Assuming that Seneca would guarantee that a working engine can be developed in a couple of years time to be tested with MWF, that is the best offer we can get in the circumstance. A working engine is going to help us learn a lot about the engine tech and govt steps to build an eco system would ensure that we are on our way to improve over time or at least give ourselves the best odds moving forward.

There is also another aspect of developing talent in academic institutions on aerospace tech, metallurgy and of course it is a slow process, DMRL does a decent job on alloys, SCB and recently heard of self healing alloys, but The gap could be too much and might need a wider base.

Crying over no TOT or failed engines or almost there with tech, too near but too far, etc.. is of little use if we do not grab the opportunities or take the chances when available.

[sajaym]

Where does the HAL HTFE-25 & HTSE engines fit into the scheme of things? IMHO HAL made the right decision to develop engines for small jets/UCAVs/Helicopters -- for which there are already various promising as well as mature indigenous programs, thereby assuring a good market for such engines.

Here's one gent arguing how HAL should have developed a bigger engine for the jaguars.

https://idrw.org/how-htfe-40-could-have ... aircrafts/

Such an engine would've have been another long running drama with HAL having to constantly measure upto IAFs high standards. Plus expecting IAF to agree to put not one but two such engines into one of it's reliable platforms would have been a big ask.

With the HTFE-25 HAL has aimed small and should if fail, it will miss small. We should be following the HTFE-25 story and not the Kaveri story.

[Rakesh]

After the French, now it is the turn of the Americans

https://twitter.com/dperi84/status/1187405643008880641 ---> India-US defence cooperation: Joint working group on jet engine cooperation within the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative “has been suspended,” said Ellen M Lord, Undersecretary of Defense Acquisition and Sustainment.

https://twitter.com/dperi84/status/1187409750084018178 ---> “We could not come to an understanding of what exportable technologies would be useful to the Indians and we did run into a challenge in terms of US export controls,” Ms. Lord on suspension of joint working group on jet engine technology cooperation.

[Manish_Sharma]

^ We should retaliate by removing fat panting teens f16, f18 & grippen from mmrca 2.0

[Indranil]

We are not in a position to retaliate. Will not be till we become independent in the engine department.

[Pratyush]

What is the real issue with Kaveri. Is it a lack of money, or poor material science, or poor application of available material sciences, or lack of trained human resources, that can do the design and construction of the engine it self.

Because reading this thread, i can't really understand why the damn thing cannot be used in a fighter.

I mean we are saying that one of the major issues is screech of the AB.

Ok design a new one, if the core is ok. How expensive and difficult it really can be?

Or there is some other issue with the engine that we don't really know.

[Aditya_V]

I think the problem is also our Babudom does not understand complexity and importance, this whole thing of going to Russia is stupid, all Testbed and related Aircraft need to be moved to India, the sheer delays in testing and knowing the result of the changes is stupid. quite frankly there does seem to be a proper publically available source of what is goign wrong here.

[chetak]

After the French, now it is the turn of the Americans

https://twitter.com/dperi84/status/1187405643008880641 ---> India-US defence cooperation: Joint working group on jet engine cooperation within the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative “has been suspended,” said Ellen M Lord, Undersecretary of Defense Acquisition and Sustainment.

https://twitter.com/dperi84/status/1187409750084018178 ---> “We could not come to an understanding of what exportable technologies would be useful to the Indians and we did run into a challenge in terms of US export controls,” Ms. Lord on suspension of joint working group on jet engine technology cooperation.

meaning: we will not part with the family silver.

Useless exercise.

I hope at least the food at the meetings was worth it.