Kaveri & Aero-Engine: News & Discussion

[chetak]

There is not enough utility for a DRDO owned testbed and it will take many millions more to instrument and configure the aircraft as a testbed not to mention grounding it for up to a year or even a year and a half.

While I appreciate where you are coming from, it may not necessarily be the view of the govt to do this primarily because of the low confidence levels which have been the unfortunate fall out of the very lengthy gestation period of the kaveri engine and yet the program continues to be in the doldrums having plateaued out quite some time ago.

.

The approximate cost to rig up a used 747 to make a test bed is $70 million. This figure is from rolls royce who bought a 747 from qantas recently.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/roll ... index.html

That is around 500 crore rupes which can easily be obtained by say GOI selling a small land parcel in
So Bo. Or compare that amount with 69000 cr bail out package for bsnl & mtnl.
I cant see how they are going to test kaveri turbofan without a test bed. And what about testing the NAL - Drdo turboprop for replacing the PT6A on saras and HAL HTFE 25 and Resurrected Kaveri with afterburners and so on. Dont know how much Russia charges per test, but this 500 cr sure looks cheaper in the long run when we have many more aero engines program.

This is what they look like and RR being an engine designer and manufacturer probably did their own instrumentation work and saved a pile of money there so it is likely that the $70 million spent may have been for the structural modifications and also for certification.

The instrumentation alone would have cost them a bomb.





better a bird in hand rather than a pie in the sky.

If at all we go for a testbed, why the 747 which is costly as well as humongously expensive to operate.

We only have the smaller engines, if at all, to test so a smaller aircraft should do us well enough.

Rest assured that our guys are not in the GE9X/RR Trent league and nor are they likely to be any time soon.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=995i8v28QEU


GE Aviation Flying Test Bed Tour | Flight Test Operations

[kit]

Composite fan blade manufacture., note the amount of manual work needed

[kit]

And the Rolls Royce Trent

Stupendous complexity., see the QC teams at work ..every step

[maitya]

Maitya, How much do you think the current Kabini core cost out of the total Kaveri program?

to me looks like the turbo fan, casing the after burner are per requirement.

So what will it take to come up with a new engine that will poser the MWF and the Naval Tejas Mk2.
Nice if it can power AMCA but not needed.


Ref: viewtopic.php?p=2372872#p2372872

The price, not cost, for new M88 core for Kaveri is
€250M (Safran)+ €500M (DRDO) = €750M.
DRDO spent € 240M total for the Kaveri so far.
So €750M.for new core is definitely high.
The biggest problem is the shoe string budget for the Kaveri.
Despite so many higher ups saying it's a national project of importance.
I would ask DRDO how much to redo the core with M88 type technology?
And fund them.
SAFRAN quoting 3x cost of Kaveri is either a rip off or don't know the job.
Can't be latter as they were consulting DRDO in some form or the other since inception.

So build a new core for a new engine.

And don't do the smallest Swiss mechanical watch type of design.

Ramanaji, reg your above poser: "How much do you think the current Kabini core cost out of the total Kaveri program?"
Never been good (or comfortable) with revenue/costs/budgets etc - so no clue really!!
But from the struggle/effort basis of what is normally seen elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprise the breakup is something like 60%-15%-25% for Core-Fan/AB-Certification respectively etc.
The figures would be very diff for a civilian application of course, as nobody develops a dedicated Core for such applications (the core are all from previous and well-used military applications) - plus the testing/certification would be of very high proportionality (plus Fan and LPT effort being quite significant etc).
Not for nothing denovo core developments, anywhere in military or civilian applications, are normally categorized once-in-a-3-or-4-decade phenomenon.

These % for established engine dev houses would also be quite different, as all core development is strictly incremental and unlike denovo effort for Kaveri etc.


Wrt SAFRAN quoting 3x is neither a rip-off - and, given the long history (right from day 1 actually) of providing consultative support to the Kaveri program, they are probably the ones who knows the best of what needs to be done.
It's not a rip-off, as my hunch is, like any good business house, they sense that this is probably the last chance of milking us - their assessment probably is Kabini/Kaveri design is probably mature enough that if they don't go for the kill now, we may not need any of their (or anybody's) support too much in near future.

But being well entrenched in our "system" they also very well know the MoD baboons thought processes (that are devoid of any technical or program mgmt maturity level and mostly centered around arithmetic and schedule Calisthenics etc) and how to game the system - i.e. with no "proven RoI" (aka no platform to power) this program will not be funded for the last mile certification etc, however indigenous etc that effort may be.
So quote some figure, get the moolah, and few years later say, "sorry, nothing possible - the core needs to be changed to attain this 90-95KN figure" etc etc - and here's the bill and here's the M88-2 core for it.

That fund of-course will be spent in developing the now-in-cold-storage-for-lack-of-funds M88-3 program.

We are, after all, masters of reimbursing foreign R&D spends ...


Cybaruji, hnairji and others, apologies for not being able to respond meaningfully to you guys - honestly, in my head I have a lot more to say regarding this developing-or-redeveloping-core etc etc, all from a layman pov - but simply don't have that b/w to actually write them up.
I still owe Prasadji a response wrt LZ vs YSZ TBC applications in a PS-vs-non-EBPVD-situations etc (form a couple of pages back).

So I should just shut up and concentrate on completing those ... one at a time, I guess.

[Abhibhushan]

In a silly mood this evening and I want to toss in a very silly idea for a heated discussion.

We have no airborne test bed as of now. Getting a large aircraft and modifying it as a test bed for subsonic testing of the engine is expensive. (‘So what !’ I would want to scream) . But for the moment can we look for some Jugaad ?

How about fitting a Kaveri inside an AN 32? Just put in the Tejas intake duct pair behind the cockpit bulkhead and feed them into the engine intake trying to copy the Tejas intake. Better still, if the space is available, shove in a Tejas intake module as is. Shove the exhaust through the rear. Remove the ramp if need be. Test it flying upto M.5 or so. Main aim would be to become assured of its reliability in actual prolonged flight.

Once we are comfortable about Kaveri’s reliability, we can put it into a Tejas and go through the rest of the tests.

Come on all ye engineers. Pull out your pocket calculators and carry out a feasibility study and show the world how far Indian Jugaad can take you. All the best. . And of course I have not thought of resonance and vibration problems at all. O baad mey Dekha jayega.

[fanne]

Composite fan blade manufacture., note the amount of manual work needed

Kit ji, this is a great video and something that we can do too.

Our composite effort (see link -https://www.nal.res.in/en/articledivision?ar_id=369) from aircraft body (wings, fins, tails) have been a huge success. This effort (and this is all from memory) started around when everybody in the world was starting around 1970s-1980s. Modest budget, modest group of people, and in 1995-1996 when first LCA rolled out, at that time it had the highest % by surface area of composite use in any fighter plane in the world!! We have only advanced, and now new planes are moving composite way. We have been a world leader in that narrow field. It took us same amount of time (in fact less, we were the first), as it took other 'advanced' countries to master and use this technology.

In my very humble opinion, NAL should be mandated to develop composite blades (if you see their website, they do everything else but blades). Single crystal blades (SCB), thermal barrier coating are all black science, where we may or may not succeed (it looks like we are almost there, operative word is almost). Now producing them in numbers is altogether a different issue (that we have to overcome after we figure out the R&D part). Jumping directly to composites (where everyone else is going, even companies that mastered SCB some 20 years ago and manufactured 1000s of engines using that tech), we can leap frog this stage. Just like in telecom, we did not had to put copper wire to every house (AT&T of USA holds 50% of the copper of the world), but using mobile technology we are one of the best telecom country in the world. If we were to lay copper, we would not have achieved 5% of where we are.

This effort (composite blade) should have been started some 5-10 years ago, still it is not too late. That is the future anyways. If we figure out to make composite blades before mastering SCB tech, we may not need to kill ourselves for that.

Rest of engine design and testing/certification, that infra has to be set up regardless. If we cannot get jumbo jets as test beds, we can use our twin engine planes (Jags, Mig 29, SU30MKI, even retired bombers like Canberra (if we can manage spare situation)). We are anyway retiring some of the early Jags, why not use it for this, or better still make one/few for this purpose only.

[fanne]

In a silly mood this evening and I want to toss in a very silly idea for a heated discussion.

We have no airborne test bed as of now. Getting a large aircraft and modifying it as a test bed for subsonic testing of the engine is expensive. (‘So what !’ I would want to scream) . But for the moment can we look for some Jugaad ?

How about fitting a Kaveri inside an AN 32? Just put in the Tejas intake duct pair behind the cockpit bulkhead and feed them into the engine intake trying to copy the Tejas intake. Better still, if the space is available, shove in a Tejas intake module as is. Shove the exhaust through the rear. Remove the ramp if need be. Test it flying upto M.5 or so. Main aim would be to become assured of its reliability in actual prolonged flight.

Once we are comfortable about Kaveri’s reliability, we can put it into a Tejas and go through the rest of the tests.

Come on all ye engineers. Pull out your pocket calculators and carry out a feasibility study and show the world how far Indian Jugaad can take you. All the best. . And of course I have not thought of resonance and vibration problems at all. O baad mey Dekha jayega.

Exactly what should be done, we have enough fighters, bombers, transport planes that can be modified. It just need the will to do it and one person/agency responsible to do all of this. Transport planes perhaps can test it till M.5, and fighters/bombers for a higher Mach.

We have to stop aping US or Russia, their test bed is Boeing or IL and so we need the same. You work with what you have and what you can have. And what we have is adequate.

[arvin]

In a silly mood this evening and I want to toss in a very silly idea for a heated discussion.

We have no airborne test bed as of now. Getting a large aircraft and modifying it as a test bed for subsonic testing of the engine is expensive. (‘So what !’ I would want to scream) . But for the moment can we look for some Jugaad ?

Sir please take a look at the above videos and amount of instrumentation that went into the 747 of RR and GE.
There wont be any space for people or instrumentation if its placed in the cargo hold.
The perception of 747 test bed being expensive is also not correct. The aircraft is free while we only need to do instrumentation and structural modification. Netra and soon A330 are examples we can do this complex task.

[Abhibhushan]

^^ I thought our software boys are pretty good with data links. Aren’t they?

[fanne]

plus that data is mostly analyzed on ground (after the flight); except for emergency situation, where you need the data on board to stop the engine (or jettison it if that is an option). We need not have to instrument it for a flying lab. Uncle can do, but why we?

[chetak]

In a silly mood this evening and I want to toss in a very silly idea for a heated discussion.

We have no airborne test bed as of now. Getting a large aircraft and modifying it as a test bed for subsonic testing of the engine is expensive. (‘So what !’ I would want to scream) . But for the moment can we look for some Jugaad ?

Sir please take a look at the above videos and amount of instrumentation that went into the 747 of RR and GE.
There wont be any space for people or instrumentation if its placed in the cargo hold.
The perception of 747 test bed being expensive is also not correct. The aircraft is free while we only need to do instrumentation and structural modification. Netra and soon A330 are examples we can do this complex task.

free.

Really.

Why would AI part with it for free when DRDO can pay. Alliance air is their own subsidiary and equations there are very different. Are they going to forgo the opportunity costs of a flying and revenue producing 747 and take the hit just because of some sweet talking scientists. I think not. They will make you pay and pay through the nose until you bleed.

These PSU guys well know how to work their labor unions to bring pressure exactly where needed. There is no known counter to this so far.


Aircraft modifications: structural + instrumentation will be done abroad as no facilities or design capability or expertise available incountry

Insurance aircraft +crew (After idly disaster, everyone is going to be very very wary)

certification by DGCA

crew, maint+Flight +crew training and certification

recurrent and mandatory sim training generally abroad once in every 3-6 months

Maint checks, some major ones to be done abroad

spares, LRUs

fuel + consumables

infrastructure on ground, tools, rigs, jacks, servicing equipment, ground equipment like power carts, hydraulic power, airconditioning carts, hangarage for the 747 will cost in multiple tens of crores

spare engines: at least two to start with

crew training and confirmed long term availability of the crews, both flight and maintenance. diferent crews for different engines and crews have to be certified on the engines they are going to handle.

housing and transportation for key personnel like at least two complete sets of test pilots and flight test engineers.

medical facilities including a set of aviation medical specialists and staff available for preflight medicals.

and this is just off the top of my head.

All this and more for a very expensive asset that is going to be spending about 75-80% of its time on the ground waiting for other people to get their acts together, if at all.

[Rakesh]

Chetak Sir, I agree that Air India will charge DRDO a bleeding fee for the use of their 747.

Too bad though...because from one pocket (Air India), the money is moving to another pocket (DRDO). Same pant, different pockets.

As long as the stakeholders (DRDO, Air India and the GoI) understand that, all izz well

[chetak]

Chetak Sir, I agree that Air India will charge DRDO a bleeding fee for the use of their 747.

Too bad though...because from one pocket (Air India), the money is moving to another pocket (DRDO). Same pant, different pockets.

Rakesh saar,

I really get where all these guys are coming from but at the same time there has to be some semblance of logic in the discussions.

I often think that the kaveri fiasco was entirely due to lack of appreciation of the enormity and magnitude of the problem as well as a misplaced sense of overhyped jingoism with a huge helping of gigantic egos running amuck.

[Rakesh]

Maaf karo Sir, Maaf karo. The suggestions being put forward are by folks who mean well. Sometimes one has to sift through various proposals - no matter how crazy or unobtainable it may seem - for one to validate. And even then, that one proposal will not work at the validation stage. And the process starts anew. To an informed gurus like yourself, it will likely seem illogical. Disprove the idea, but do not kill the messenger. That messenger may just have another idea that might work. Disclaimer - That was not directed at you.

[Rakesh]

Security Scan discussion on RS TV about Kaveri Engines...
Nothing new in the discussion, but one small info from Arora ji is Dry Thrust requirement of final AMCA engine, which is 75kN...
I heard only Wet Thrust requirements (110kN) in all news articles, but couldn't find the dry thrust requirement anywhere before...

Just to put that in perspective, 75kN is the max dry thrust produced by the Su-30's Saturn AL-31F. We need the same on an engine of roughly the size and weight of the GE F-414. No such engine exists today anywhere.

That's not to necessarily say that the technology to make such an engine does not exist. PW or GE can probably build one based off of the technological developments made for the F135 and F136 respectively. But building one in house in India without outside help is out of the question.

Thank you for highlighting the bolded part. Very true. Many pranams to you.

[nachiket]

Question is has GTRE itself asked for a flying testbed? If they make enough noise then transferring one 747 (which should be close to retirement now anyway) from AI to them should not be impossible. Both GTRE and AI are essentially govt. departments. Yes the bean counters will raise hell, but let them. If there is enough will and vision they can be overruled by the political bosses. Modifying it to work as a testbed will require both downtime and money of course, but the payoffs in the long run will be huge.

Of course this is India we are talking about. So pigs will fly supersonic before any of this happens.

[Cybaru]

A used 747 can be bought for less than 30 million dollars from the market. Or GTRE can pay Air India 30 million dollars from budget. Accounting issues should be least of the problem.

[chetak]

Maaf karo Sir, Maaf karo. The suggestions being put forward are by folks who mean well. Sometimes one has to sift through various proposals - no matter how crazy or unobtainable it may seem - for one to validate. And even then, that one proposal will not work at the validation stage. And the process starts anew. To an informed gurus like yourself, it will likely seem illogical. Disprove the idea, but do not kill the messenger. That messenger may just have another idea that might work. Disclaimer - That was not directed at you.

Rakesh saar,

I have seen you post for a long time now and there is no way that anyone can mistake you. Never you fear.

I know that each and every guy here means well and they all have the light of patriotic fervor shining in their eyes as well as the Tiranga fluttering strong in their hearts.

I wish that somebody in the early days of the kaveri project had stopped for a minute and stepped back to do a realistic stock taking of where they actually stood.

Maybe then, they would have taken a different path and got the success that their undoubted hard work entitled them to.

The delay in kaveri has actually cast a shadow over the DRDO itself leading to doubting thomases in the ministry as well as sceptical politicos in dilli gaining the upper hand.

All the entities, both inside and outside of the DRDO that did not play their allotted roles in supporting the kaveri are well known to all to bear rehashing now.

The goras will come when the price is right or the market for their other systems becomes large enough to ensure that we are not ignored once again and our writ will run.

Even though we are not yet their equals yet, they know that we are well enough along in metallurgy, technology as well as in other allied fields to learn very quickly.

The success of the DAE, ISRO, the Arihant, our home built aircraft carriers, our world class missile systems, and our achievements in space is seriously unnerving them and they fear that given fighter engine tech it will become the enabler that will significantly reduce our time to real superpower status. We have never stolen space, nuke and weapons tech like the pakis or the chinese and nor have we had powerful well wishers like the amerikis who helped out the EU nations in all these fields.

We have had some help from israel and the russkis both of whom have been very careful as to what they actually gave us. The Kfir taught the jews to hide their tech prowess and I am very sure that they have the engine tech that we need but they will not give it to us as indeed the japanese also will not risk helping us.

we have mostly done it all on our very own and that is not something that the goras are able to digest easily.

Despite all the foolishness of banditji and his "die nasty" descendants, we have made it quite far and today we are among the top five economies in the world after being raped by the muslims, the britshits, the french, the dutch, the portuguese and GOK who else we have somehow staggered and stumbled our way in to the top five.

Imagine where we would have been today, if we all had pulled as one, over these 70 odd years.

The DRDO bosses should leverage the success of the missile programs, show case it in dilli to drag GTRE out of the rut and make it a viable and going enterprise.

[chetak]

A used 747 can be bought for less than 30 million dollars from the market. Or GTRE can pay Air India 30 million dollars from budget. Accounting issues should be least of the problem.

I hear that an airbus 320 makes roughly about Rs11-14 crores a month after expenses, give or take

A 747 can do much better on high density routes like the gulf where mostly carpenters and masons fly, meaning the passengers are not overly picky. Not too sure about the economics of the 747 because it was not part of the fleet where I was working.

$30 million may be an underestimate. Such a rustbucket may require lots of work, mods and updates to recertify again thus adding many tens of millions to the asking price before it becomes deployable.

BTW, why involve AI in the deal at all. Buy direct from the market, use AI as a consulting company to help pick the right aircraft, modify and enter into a contract with any suitable entity to manage the aircraft.

[Cybaru]

A used 747 can be bought for less than 30 million dollars from the market. Or GTRE can pay Air India 30 million dollars from budget. Accounting issues should be least of the problem.

$30 million may be an underestimate. Such a rustbucket may require lots of work, mods and updates to recertify again thus adding many tens of millions to the asking price before it becomes deployable.

BTW, why involve AI in the deal at all. Buy direct from the market, use AI as a consulting company to help pick the right aircraft, modify and enter into a contract with any suitable entity to manage the aircraft.

Sure - It may require mods and rejigging for adding a engine
https://www.controller.com/listings/air ... -group/747

[nam]

I often think that the kaveri fiasco was entirely due to lack of appreciation of the enormity and magnitude of the problem as well as a misplaced sense of overhyped jingoism with a huge helping of gigantic egos running amuck.

This is very acceptable argument, however our situation was between a rock and hard place.

People who made the decision to go for a ambitious target, would have known, there is frankly no point setting a lower target. They would have also known that, even if we achieved a lab prototype generating 80KN wet thrust, there was no chance in hell that such a engine will be rolling off production line by the time LCA achieved FOC.

They would also known that it is madness to use a newly designed un-proved Kaveri engine on a first time locally designed jet! I mean, IAF was looking for excuses to not induct LCA. LCA crashing due to issues with Kaveri would have been a God send gift.

On the other end if we had set a target of say 60-65KN wet thrust, what is the point of such a engine? We cannot use it on LCA.

The fact of the matter is Kaveri was never meant for LCA. LCA was always suppose to have F404 in operation. The boat has long sailed when we could use a "achievable target" of 60-65KN.

[nam]

It is the same with our objective of 110KN engine. If we throw enough money, we have enough brains in our country and getting the required testing platforms, we might achieve a 110KN engine.

It is possible to build a 110KN engine, but it is not easy to serially produce a 110KN which does not fall off the sky.

That requires experience, an experience which only a experienced producer like US, UK, France can give. Just look at RD33/93. It has been around for ages, but still cannot match F404's consistency.

If we want to thank one element, which saved the Indian fighter jet MIC, it is the F404 engine. I cannot say enough, what a fabulous decision it was to choose F404 and NOT RD33.

[arvin]

Question is has GTRE itself asked for a flying testbed? I....

FWIW, the issue of a missing FTB is highly over-rated here on BRF.... a red humpback whale if you will. An in-house FTB is only as much valuable in that it allows you to solve those problems that were ONLY found on the FTB faster.

We have around 4 to 5 aero engine programs running currently across all segments: Turbofan, turbojet, turboprop, etc. There would be more to come. These engines would require continuos tweaking to ensure they stay modern. Without a FTB all of them will have to be sent to Russia after every design change. Not a good idea. We need a gromov equivalent here.

[sajaym]

The Kaveri project should be allowed to fumble along with the drone projects & not interfere with any of the current/ future manned fighter projects. What is needed is to take the learnings from the Kaveri project and design a new engine from scratch along with active private participation. This new engine should have dimension & performance commonality with all our future fighter programs - MWF, TEDBF, AMCA, MRCA 2.0. Infact, just like in the artillery program let there be different teams offering multiple offerings -- GTRE/DRDO+pvt parties offering one engine and HAL+partners+pvt parties offering another. Since there will be a huge market for such an engine across the multiple fighter projects, there will be a incentive for the private parties also.

Regarding FTB - why can't any of the LCA TDs be configured as a Drone FTB? It's definitely do-able. The only problem I can think of is that GTRE which owns the Kaveri engine is a different entity and HAL which owns the LCA TDs is a different entity. On the other hand HAL which is developing the HTSE and the HTFE has plenty of spare platforms which can be rigged up as drone FTBs to test it's engines. What could be the issues preventing this? Could someone here from HAL comment?

[prasannasimha]

Problem of using LCA as FTB is it is a single engine plane so failure would end in a crash and loss of data wrt direct engine analysis

[prasannasimha]

Problem of using LCA as FTB is it is a single engine plane so failure would end in a crash and loss of data wrt direct engine analysis

[Indranil]

In a silly mood this evening and I want to toss in a very silly idea for a heated discussion.

We have no airborne test bed as of now. Getting a large aircraft and modifying it as a test bed for subsonic testing of the engine is expensive. (‘So what !’ I would want to scream) . But for the moment can we look for some Jugaad ?

How about fitting a Kaveri inside an AN 32? Just put in the Tejas intake duct pair behind the cockpit bulkhead and feed them into the engine intake trying to copy the Tejas intake. Better still, if the space is available, shove in a Tejas intake module as is. Shove the exhaust through the rear. Remove the ramp if need be. Test it flying upto M.5 or so. Main aim would be to become assured of its reliability in actual prolonged flight.

Once we are comfortable about Kaveri’s reliability, we can put it into a Tejas and go through the rest of the tests.

Come on all ye engineers. Pull out your pocket calculators and carry out a feasibility study and show the world how far Indian Jugaad can take you. All the best. . And of course I have not thought of resonance and vibration problems at all. O baad mey Dekha jayega.

Sirjee,

What you are speaking of fine is with me except I would arrange it in the Lockheed Tristar fashion and place the engine in the tail cone.


There are many advantages. The intake will have the least distortion and the exhaust will be in the free stream. The cabin will be almost free. The mismatch in thrust will not affect flight dynamics and it is easy to study effects of sideslip. One added advantage is the the significantly higher safety as well. A catastrophic failure in the test engine will not jeopardize the aicraft and crew.

But, this is not a good setup for an FTB. This setup will test the intake-engine combo and there is no way to separate the same for some parameters.

Agupta sahab, I don't understand your arguments on the lack of an FTB is not a serious impediment. That is akin to saying "Is not having a swimming pool seriously that big of an impediment in the development of a world class swimmer?" FTBs are EXTREMELY expensive one-off planes. Every design house would not have one if they were not that important?

[chetak]

Does anybody have any idea of how much heat and noise is generated by a running engine.

Shroud this and put it inside an AN32 in any way you want. You would still need to run fuel lines to it. The noise alone would interfere unacceptably with the test pilots work in the cockpit.

Who would agree to certify and clear for flight such a technical complexity and more important, which pilot(s) and engineer(s) would agree to such a kamikaze venture.

Which brave designer(s) would ask them to undertake such a mission and what if, just what if, the test pilots "invited" such a "brave" designer(s) to accompany them on this mission.

This engine would sit fairly close to the wing fuel tanks, how would the pilots and test engineers save themselves in case of a mishap.

Where would they escape from and how or would they all be expected to do a saras in the name of furthering the frontiers of progress in India's fighter engine saga.

Has such a thing ever been attempted before.

just asking onlee.

agupta sahab is absolutely right.

The lack of an FTB at this stage is not a serious impediment.

the requirement of the FTB is quite a ways down the road and GTRE is certainly not clamoring for one right away, if at all

So why jump the gun by counting the FTB chickens even before the engine eggs have hatched.

there is an enormous amount of work to be done on the ground before the improved/reworked kaveri is even ready to be mated to a pylon on the FTB.

yeh to sirf trailer tha, picture abhi baki hai

If a proper FMEA had been done on the saras, one that identified all part failure modes, its primary benefit would have been the early identification of all critical and catastrophic subsystem or system failure modes so that they could have been eliminated or minimized through procedure modification after proper data dissemination and training at the earliest point in the development effort to undertake the test flight for the single engine tests.

Had the process been properly understood and used, the FMEA would have been rigorously performed at the system level as soon as changed preliminary operating information was available as regards the new propellers and the same would have extended to the lower levels as the revised and detailed operational processes involving the flight crew who were ultimately tasked to perform the flight test.

A lot of work in our own govt labs would benefit enormously from such a rigorous insight prior to the actual undertaking of work so as to enable the project leads to chart the optimally correct path and ensure the proper and economically efficient utilization of scarce resources to the ultimate benefit of the organization in terms of credibility as well as results.

[chetak]

It is the same with our objective of 110KN engine. If we throw enough money, we have enough brains in our country and getting the required testing platforms, we might achieve a 110KN engine.

It is possible to build a 110KN engine, but it is not easy to serially produce a 110KN which does not fall off the sky.

That requires experience, an experience which only a experienced producer like US, UK, France can give. Just look at RD33/93. It has been around for ages, but still cannot match F404's consistency.

If we want to thank one element, which saved the Indian fighter jet MIC, it is the F404 engine. I cannot say enough, what a fabulous decision it was to choose F404 and NOT RD33.

Sirji,

why would anyone be "throwing money" in development work.

Wouldn't judicious deployment of the required financial resources for project funding be more acceptable. Just saying onlee

One wonders how and why, unexpectedly and entirely out of the blue, at that critical stage of the LCA development work, the GE F404 "suddenly" became available to us when over the years the amerikis have been anything but helpful in their military support to India, especially in the LCA program.

If not the F404, I am very sure that a competing french or some other non ameriki engine would have equally miraculously made its dramatic appearance at around the same time, magnanimously hastening to the urgent aid of the unwashed natives.

Both would have the underlying motive of subtly controlling India's fighter development program and tie it down to one single source of engine supply and forcing us to commit to the development and purchase of higher powered versions of the same engine.

Has the F414 not already made its appearance and at appreciably higher unit prices.

yeh to sirf trailer tha, picture abhi baki hai

[chola]

Except maybe for Japan and Cheen, there is no real example for what we are doing here.

The US, UK, France and Russia have decades of experience and hundreds of billions in sunk investment in testing and manufacturing. And Russia trails the other three badly in commercial engines that depends on reliability and endurance which tells you how far behind even Russia is.

So no, we are not going to develop a 110kN medium engine by ourselves that even the US does not have now.

In order to gain the experience that the big four have we need to finish an engine that is within our tech level and then mass produce it. That is the Kaveri. We need to get it into production.

Only India, Japan and Cheen have attempted turbofans outside the big four. The difference is Japan had flown theirs in airplanes and Cheen has gone one better in mass producing theirs.

The PRC will crank out 350 WS-10s this year. And this is an engine that performed below that of the Kaveri when both were testing in Gromov. So what happened since? Unlike us, Cheen bought an Il-76 testbed from Russia (the same model used by the Kaveri) and it began production of the WS-10 with all its warts. Re-iteration on the production lines created variant after variant until they found something they like.

Finish up the Kaveri and use the ghatak to begin mass production of it. The 110kN is a goal but we need to finish up and productionize the Kaveri. If we leave Kaveri half-finish then it will be the same for the 110kN.

[chetak]

Except maybe for Japan and Cheen, there is no real example for what we are doing here.

The US, UK, France and Russia have decades of experience and hundreds of billions in sunk investment in testing and manufacturing. And Russia trails the other three badly in commercial engines that depends on reliability and endurance which tells you how far behind even Russia is.

So no, we are not going to develop a 110kN medium engine by ourselves that even the US does not have now.

In order to gain the experience that the big four have we need to finish an engine that is within our tech level and then mass produce it. That is the Kaveri. We need to get it into production.

Only India, Japan and Cheen have attempted turbofans outside the big four. The difference is Japan had flown theirs in airplanes and Cheen has gone one better in mass producing theirs.

The PRC will crank out 350 WS-10s this year. And this is an engine that performed below that of the Kaveri when both were testing in Gromov. So what happened since? Unlike us, Cheen bought an Il-76 testbed from Russia (the same model used by the Kaveri) and it began production of the WS-10 with all its warts. Re-iteration on the production lines created variant after variant until they found something they like.

Finish up the Kaveri and use the ghatak to begin mass production of it. The 110kN is a goal but we need to finish up and productionize the Kaveri. If we leave Kaveri half-finish then it will be the same for the 110kN.

All that you say is very true.

But the amerikis have almost successfully stymied the possibility of any serious funding for the kaveri with the strategically well timed entry of their F404/F414 series of fighter engines to power the LCA.

Their immediate intention in all likelihood was not just the sales of the F404/F414 engines per se but to try and kill the kaveri development so as to eliminate any threat and clear the field for themselves.

customer khush, supplier khush, aircraft designer and aircraft manufacturer also khush.

it's almost game, set and match, no

[maitya]

Agupta sahab, I don't understand your arguments on the lack of an FTB is not a serious impediment.
<snip>

<snip>
This is why I found Maitya's post about other metrics being met so interesting. For DRDO to admit defeat directly, lots of other stuff would have gone wrong than just LCF on the FTB or A/B problems.
<snip>

aguptaji, Kaveri didn't only met it's design objectives, it actually surpassed them.

But what I said above is not true and indeed laughable for those for whom, a turbofan is all about a Thrust or an Overall-Weight figure - and that too Wet thrust figure.
I have seen many many in BRF who starts yelling "... yaar, issue with the Core yaar ..." etc because of Wet Thrust being not met (75KN achieved vs 81KN design-goal) - so "... naya foreign core lao Kaveri bachao ..." sloganeering.

Anyway sample this - just for one bit - the compressor:
Mass flow: 24.13 kg/s (24.3 - design goal)
Pressure Ratio: 6.42 (6.38 - design goal)
Efficiency: 85.4% (85% - design goal)
Surge Margin %: 21.6 (20% - design goal)

Now can I make it slightly interesting:
So since, F404-402 HPC Pressure Ratio - 6.0 - can I say Kaveri (with PR of 6.4) is better than F404?

BUT

F404-402 FAN Pressure Ratio - 4.1 - so can I say F404 is better than Kaveri (with PR of 3.4)

BUT WAIT

F404-402 has 7 stages in it's HPC - while Kaveri has 6.
(F414 has 6 - and that's one of primary design goal of 404-to-414 evolution actually).

BUT WAIT AGAIN

F404-402 weighs 1,035Kg while Kaveri 1,150Kg
Kaveri must be really bad to weigh more than F404 but with 1 lesser Compressor stage.

Hmmm ... but but
F404-402 SFC is 83/177 while that of Kaveri 80/207 kg/kN.h
(so is that Kaveri has better "core" than F404-402 but not-so-good afterburner system)

...
...

Completely confused whom to hand the trophy:
Let's settle this by comparing the TeT, a very popular parameter to judge a turbofan:
F404-402 has 1390deg C while Kaveri has 1455deg C - Kaveri wins finally!!!

but, wait a sec, what about the equally popular parameter - OPR
F404-402 OPR is 25 - while Kaveri's is 21.5

Tie again, is it????


... so on and so forth.

Answer of course, is much more nuanced - one-day I'll get some more b/w to write about these aspects.

[chola]

Except maybe for Japan and Cheen, there is no real example for what we are doing here.

The US, UK, France and Russia have decades of experience and hundreds of billions in sunk investment in testing and manufacturing. And Russia trails the other three badly in commercial engines that depends on reliability and endurance which tells you how far behind even Russia is.

So no, we are not going to develop a 110kN medium engine by ourselves that even the US does not have now.

In order to gain the experience that the big four have we need to finish an engine that is within our tech level and then mass produce it. That is the Kaveri. We need to get it into production ...

All that you say is very true.

But the amerikis have almost successfully stymied the possibility of any serious funding for the kaveri with the strategically well timed entry of their F404/F414 series of fighter engines to power the LCA.

Their immediate intention in all likelihood was not just the sales of the F404/F414 engines per se but to try and kill the kaveri development so as to eliminate any threat and clear the field for themselves.

customer khush, supplier khush, aircraft designer and aircraft manufacturer also khush.

it's almost game, set and match, no

Chetak ji, I cannot agree. The amreeki F404 saved the LCA in my honest opinion. How we handled the Kaveri is all is on us not the amreekis.

Because it is not the Americans that kept us from developing a version of the LCA that can use the Kaveri. Even now, it is not too late imho.

Please read what the chinis had done with the J-10 and the WS-10 and its imported engine the AL-31. The scenario matches the LCA/Kaveri one exactly.

They did have the advantage of a twin-engine aircraft that used the same engine. But still if the chinis can put the WS-10 repeatedly on the J-10 and then switched back to AL-31 until they were satisfied then we could have done the same with the LCA and Kaveri.

https://mobile.twitter.com/stoa1984/sta ... 4042582016

Taepodong
@stoa1984
Without Su-27/AL-31 import, J-10 probably would end up dead becaue of WP-15. WS-10 development would also meet more hurdles without knowledge from AL-31.

...



Taepodong
@stoa1984
·
Jan 20
Replying to
@stoa1984
as a matter of fact, WS10 was put on J-10 prototypes some 10 years ago but WS-10 powered J-10 production batch was not accepted until very recently. It would be hard to image PLA aviation force without Su27 import.

...



Taepodong
@stoa1984
·
Jan 20
Finally, WS10 and J-10 survived thanks to Su-27 project. China used an entire heavy double engine fighter fleet to build-up WS10 reliability and progress. Would result in so many crashes if J10 is fitted with early batch WS10.

...



Taepodong
@stoa1984
New photos of J-11B with WS10 engines. China to produce 320 WS10 engines this year, according to http://alert5.com/2019/12/26/china-will ... till-2026/

[arvin]

Was digging through MOD reports for future course of action on kaveri found the below links.
STANDING COMMITTEE ON DEFENCE (2015-2016)
http://164.100.60.131/lsscommittee/Defe ... nce_17.pdf

The Committee desire that infrastructure to test aero-engines should also be created within the country so that flying testing of engine be achieved and time be saved in carrying the engine to foreign country and finding availability of slot testing agency etc.

Reply of the Government

Necessary test facilities for component level, systems level and whole engine are proposed to be established at an estimated cost of Rs. 1500 Cr. 26 acres of land near Bangalore Airport is allotted for this purpose. Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) functioning under DRDO is studying the Flying Test Bed (FTB) requirement, thereafter a potential platforms will be concluded.

This link has the action aken for above recomendation.
http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Defe ... nce_26.pdf

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.
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.'

Its been 4 years now, hoping the joint committee might have been constituted over endless cups of chai biskoot.

[kit]

Was digging through MOD reports for future course of action on kaveri found the below links.
STANDING COMMITTEE ON DEFENCE (2015-2016)
http://164.100.60.131/lsscommittee/Defe ... nce_17.pdf

The Committee desire that infrastructure to test aero-engines should also be created within the country so that flying testing of engine be achieved and time be saved in carrying the engine to foreign country and finding availability of slot testing agency etc.

Reply of the Government

Necessary test facilities for component level, systems level and whole engine are proposed to be established at an estimated cost of Rs. 1500 Cr. 26 acres of land near Bangalore Airport is allotted for this purpose. Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) functioning under DRDO is studying the Flying Test Bed (FTB) requirement, thereafter a potential platforms will be concluded.

This link has the action aken for above recomendation.
http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Defe ... nce_26.pdf

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.
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.'

Its been 4 years now, hoping the joint committee might have been constituted over endless cups of chai biskoot.

Wasnt there a news that Boeing transferred some used HAETF material that was junk ? ..Where did things go from there ?

The best way for Kaveri to go forward is to get it to power some /any aircraft , once it gets flying everyone will have positive ideas and solutions , this is almost like a person procrastinating about learning to swim when he wont get into the swimming pool. Get that d@mn thing flying !

[nam]

One wonders how and why, unexpectedly and entirely out of the blue, at that critical stage of the LCA development work, the GE F404 "suddenly" became available to us when over the years the amerikis have been anything but helpful in their military support to India, especially in the LCA program.

As far i understand, to make a Mig21 sized, delta like M2K, the only engine that was available was F404. M88 first flew in 90.Rafale first flew with F404. IAF didn't want to touch RD33 even with a barge pole. Even if picked RD33, LCA would have been as big as JF17!

US may have sold the engine for their own motive, but from our point of view, there was no other option.

As i said earlier, Kaveri was probably never intended to fly in LCA. All it required was one LCA flying with Kaveri to crash and IAF would have asked for the entire LCA program to be closed.

DRDO must have used the LCA program as an excuse to ask for funds for the turbofan tech. ADA would have known an engine development starting almost at the same time as LCA would have never be ready before FOC. Nor will it risk using an unproven engine on a SINGLE ENGINE fighter!

So it was not wrong to aim high. What we didn't do is fund enough money to build the ladder to climb high.. i mean 500M for a turbofan!

If we achieved an engine with this amount of money, the rest of the world should jump in to the nearest sea..

[chola]

LCA was decoupled from Kaveri only around 2008. If you look in the LCA archive threads you'll see in around that time. The LCA was designed to fly with the Kaveri.

[nam]

What HAL or DRDO chiefs say or claim in public would all be driven by their need to get funding from MoD. GoI will not fund your project if you say the truth that it will take 30-40 yrs to develop a turbofan and will cost 10B!

What I am not convinced is that LCA was designed around a engine which did not exist! I believe we designed LCA around F404 (mass flow, thrust, weight etc) and then design Kaveri to meet the spec of F404.

This is similar to what the French did with Rafale. It first flew with F404 and then M88 was designed with (almost)similar spec as F404. The difference is french were building a F404 spec for a twin engine fighter. So they could do with 75KN, we needed 80KN+ because of SE.

How did lack of Kaveri effect the LCA program? May be i have missed something, but it did not. Is LCA heavy becoz it had to keep a heavier than F404, Kaveri in mind? Did a new version of LCA come out after it was "decoupled" from kaveri?

Kaveri for all practical purpose has to be a Indian F404. Mass flow, weight, thrust, integration points etc. If we build a random engine, it would require a completely new fighter to fit in.

[nam]

Hindsight being 30-20, old wags could argue that had we NOT tried the Kaveri "experiment", the extra $100M+ in the 90s would've meant we would have gone faster on the LCA, finished the Controls work pre-embargo and sped up the LCA In IAF Service by > 5 (if not 10 or more) years

I don't think DRDO did anything wrong with asking money for Kaveri. I would lie through my teeth, to get the required funds.

It is not only the control laws which was embargoed. There was the engine as well. We had to do the integration ourself. No amount of money saving would have helped us.

Something to consider that despite being under sanctions, LCA's first flight was with F404! I wonder if we considered another engine like M88.

[Raghunathgb]

Breaking : HTFE-25 Core Engine Sea Level Trials Successful: The team of AERDC achieved a milestone with successful competition of Hindustan Turbo Fan Engine (HTFE)- 25 sea level trials at Tambaram Air Force Station, Chennai.....1/2

https://twitter.com/ReviewVayu/status/1 ... 11137?s=19

....2'2 Core engine of HTFE-25 was tested for various phases including starting trials with indigenously designed and developed Air Producer (AP) and Air Turbine Starter (ATS). Light-up trials with different fuel flow settings/air inlet temperature condition were carried out.

https://twitter.com/ReviewVayu/status/1 ... 92896?s=19