India Scraps Domestic Jet Engine Plan

[PointBlank]

Here is a reputable citation that the Kaveri is not operational.

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Outlook bleak for India

"Outlook bleak for India’s Kaveri jet engine
By: Greg Waldron | Singapore
04:13 16 May 2012

India has no fixed plans to fully develop the indigenous Kaveri fighter engine for the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) Tejas aircraft.

"The Defence Research Development Organisation [DRDO] has not fixed any timeframe to fully develop the Kaveri Aero Engine for the [Tejas]," says defence minister AK Antony.

The announcement is the closest New Delhi has come to abandoning the long-delayed engine programme, which has suffered from major performance issues and cost overruns.

Antony noted that the Tejas requires an engine capable of producing 90kN (20,200lb) of thrust, but the "Kaveri does not fully meet this requirement."

"Therefore, it has been decided to use variants of Kaveri engine to power unmanned air vehicles and also for marine applications," he says.

He adds, however, that a Kaveri jet engine could be tested aboard a Tejas Mk 1 in another three years. This suggests that major issues still need to be ironed out before the engine is married to a manned fighter.

Antony made the comments in a written reply to a question in parliament.

The Tejas Mk I uses the General Electric F404 power plant, while the planned Tejas Mk II will use the General Electric F414.

In March, Antony told parliament that the Kaveri's development cost was Rs28.39 billion ($528 million), nearly 10 times greater than the Rs3.83 billion originally allocated."

dude just read out before u post stuff the article simply states that kaveri is not suitable for lca , it does not mention anywhere in the article that the engine itself is not operational

 

[Martian2]

Oh well, I gave you at least two total citations in this thread. I can't fix your inability to read plain English.

Here's the bottom line.

1. Kaveri doesn't work. It throws fan blades and it has never passed 0.7 Mach.

2. French Snecma won't share their "know how" in building a 8.4 ton turbonfan engine.

3. Since the French won't divulge their secrets, the IAF might as well buy the more powerful GE F414 engine with higher 9.8 ton thrust.

In conclusion, the Kaveri is dead and India is no closer to building its own turbofan engine. The French won't share their secrets and neither will the Americans. However, the Americans are selling a higher-thrust engine.

 

[rcrmj]

dude just read out before u post stuff the article simply states that kaveri is not suitable for lca , it does not mention anywhere in the article that the engine itself is not operational

lol, then what it is suitable for`` UFOs?
dont find stupid excuses for your delusion

at the end day, India cannot make turbo-fan engine as simple as that``take it

 

[PointBlank]

if it was not operational we would not have this video would we?

 

[Martian2]

Did you miss the part where I said the Kaveri engine throws fan blades? If you leave the Kaveri engine "on" for too long or stress it, the Kaveri starts to fall apart.

A few seconds (or minutes) of thrust in a lab means little.

The Kaveri failed in its high-altitude tests in Russia. Also, the Kaveri can't push anything past 0.7 Mach. Those are serious limitations.

If the 8.2-ton-thrust Kaveri was operational, the IAF would not have tried to obtain the "know how" to the French Snecma 8.4-ton-thrust M88-2 turbofan engine. The joint-venture with the French failed, because the French won't show you how to build their operational and reliable 8.4-ton-thrust turbofan engine.

 

[Sasquatch]

There is no need for Chinese members to humiliate Indians in this thread. The title speak for itself.

sir you couldn't be more right, have you ever thought about politics?

 

[PointBlank]

lol, then what it is suitable for`` UFOs?
dont find stupid excuses for your delusion

at the end day, India cannot make turbo-fan engine as simple as that``take it

lol how many times do i have to post in the same thread , anyways here goes the same sentence "it is not operational in LCA APPLICATION because the minimum requirement for IAF is 90kn engine which kaveri did not achieve , hence LCA was powered by GE engines which we all knew since the first test flight , lets say its a desi style in order to rush things in last minute , since kaveri was already funded with so much cash it is moved uav programmes , i dont see anywere that we failed " the engine was never made to exceed 70-80kn the IAF's requirement kept changing during years , also its like a win-win situation , in the end we got LCA(even though its not totally indigenous) ,experience , possibly a jet engine powered uav .

 

[Sergi]

What's wrong here ??? Why is everyone dancing here on Kaveri ???

Ok Kaveri failed to achieve its main objective - LCA. No one should deny.
There are plans to use this for Locomotives and marine use.
JV with French company on the Engine will give LCA it's engine for MLU and India very needed experience to start again new project.

People here are talking like they never failed to achieve anything. China member you all know what your WS-xx is made from.
And Martian - US flagger - failure isnt alien to USA either. So SFU

 

[Martian2]

lol how many times do i have to post in the same thread , anyways here goes the same sentence "it is not operational in LCA APPLICATION because the minimum requirement for IAF is 90kn engine which kaveri did not achieve , hence LCA was powered by GE engines which we all knew since the first test flight , lets say its a desi style in order to rush things in last minute , since kaveri was already funded with so much cash it is moved uav programmes , i dont see anywere that we failed " the engine was never made to exceed 70-80kn the IAF's requirement kept changing during years , also its like a win-win situation , in the end we got LCA(even though its not totally indigenous) ,experience , possibly a jet engine powered uav .

GE F404 engine for LCA Mark I produces only 7.9 tons of thrust

No. It is not the 9 tons of thrust requirement.

If it worked, the Kaveri can generate 8.2 tons.

The replacement for the Kaveri on the LCA Mark I is the GE F404, which is only a 7.9-ton-thrust engine.

Reference: General Electric F404 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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From the article by the Original Poster (second paragraph from the bottom):

Meanwhile, the LCA Mark-1 is readying for induction by 2014, nearly 15 years behind schedule. It will be powered by the GE-404 engine, also from General Electric.

 

[faithfulguy]

Oh well, I gave you at least two total citations in this thread. I can't fix your inability to read plain English.

Here's the bottom line.

1. Kaveri doesn't work. It throws fan blades and it has never passed 0.7 Mach.

2. French Snecma won't share their "know how" in building a 8.4 ton turbonfan engine.

3. Since the French won't divulge their secrets, the IAF might as well buy the more powerful GE F414 engine with higher 9.8 ton thrust.

In conclusion, the Kaveri is dead and India is no closer to building its own turbofan engine. The French won't share their secrets and neither will the Americans. However, the Americans are selling a higher-thrust engine.

Just the facts. No need to spin this in any way, shape or form.

 

[shuttler]

In March, Antony told parliament that the Kaveri's development cost was Rs28.39 billion ($528 million), nearly 10 times greater than the Rs3.83 billion originally allocated."

how can a functioning government allow this to happen? they dont have any control or overseeing committee for their project expenses! the cwg, lca, arjun tanks have all ended up enormously exceeding budgets, cases of shoddy preparations and with long long long delays.

they deserve all the credit rating downgrades and economic downfall!

 

[TalkToMe:D]

I think I made it clear in another similar sounding thread but the experts seems to have created another thread.....cheap.

cross posting..

This doesn't surprise me a lot, as Kaveri was expected to power the Tejas Mk I version but with the later GSR of more powerful Mk II where engine power requirement have be increased to 98-100 kn class, the K-9 Engine falls no where near to it, as it was struggling to reach its pre specified 80 kn, while the report says nothing about the K-10 project, I don't keep much expectation from it either where we have no reports of its development.Anyways, I dont think the report means abandoning the project as a whole, it says it wont power the Mk II, but as far as I know K-9 would be tested on Mk I version even it is not inducted into the armed force.

The engine development process have not stopped at all, their are reasons behind it, for developing UAV and UCAV specially the later one the engine would be needed, An UCAV with a payload of <500 kg and a range <300 km would violate the MTCR rules and if we want to have a UCAV we need to have a domestically produced engine. High altitude test for K-9 was not performed in a vain, although we should accept that the development process have taken very long and failed to perform its primary objective, that is to power the Tejas.

Now stop playing cheap creating similar thread with trolling intentions.

 

[Firemaster]

Stop rejoice in another country's failures. Even though is massive and embarrassing. By putting others down and talk about China's achievements, you are no different from Indians in this forum.

On the topic, I believe India is relying too much on joint venture and TOT to immediately produce a usable engine. India should focus on taking baby steps instead of flying before crawling.

Watch your mouth , you urself are not different from hatemonger chinese community of this forum and you are definitely an idiot

 

[bloo]

The Rafale comes with 15% ToT on modules for the M88 turbofan.

This ToT will definetely help us.
TRISHUL: Weekend Musings

The important thing is even though we didn't succeed in using the engine for Tejas, we didn't go empty handed.
Plus no one says the engine is defunct or anything it will still be used..........

 

[qwerrty]

not really a failure. india never had any serious homegrown jet engine program. the kaveri is made up of parts from all over places, even the testing is done in another country. india is still incredible..