BY : Ravi Sharma For The Hindu

India’s two-decade quest for an engine that will power the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas has taken another twist with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) setting up a committee that will scout worldwide for an engine.

The formation of the committee is also an admittance that the indigenous Kaveri combat aircraft engine, which is under development by the Bangalore-based Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) to be the eventual Tejas’ power plant, will, in its present design configuration, not be able to do so.

Headed by K.V.L. Rao, a former director with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the committee has representatives, including from the Air Force, the ADA and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

The ADA, the defence laboratory which is designing the Tejas, has also been told that it might have to accommodate an alternate engine that can provide the Tejas with the required levels of power if it is to match the Air Force’s air staff requirements (ASR).
Air Force order

The Tejas programme, which is still short of its initial operational clearance, has already received an order from the Air Force for 20 aircraft.

The half-a-dozen Tejas aircraft that have been produced and flying as part of the programme are powered by the General Electric manufactured GE F404 engines. But India would like to have its own indigenous combat aircraft engine.

Under development since April 1989 by the GTRE, the Kaveri is meant to be comparable with contemporary combat aircraft engines such as the Eurojet EJ200, Snecma M88, General Electric F414 and Pratt and Whitney F119.

Initially expected to be a 93-month programme, costing Rs. 382 crore, the Kaveri project’s development cost, according to the Cabinet Committee on Security, has been revised to Rs.2,839 crore.

The inability of the GTRE to come up with the Kaveri has now forced the formation of the new committee. But the GTRE’s task has also been complicated by the fact that with the Tejas overweighing by well over a tonne, a Kaveri engine developed as per specifications originally spelt out (when the Tejas was within its design weight) will not be capable of providing a heavier aircraft with the thrust that can satisfy the Air Force’s ASR.

The Air Force had pointed out that neither of the co-development offers of France’s Snecma and Russia’s NPO Saturn was good enough to meet the ASRs.

Hence, the DRDO had to reassess the situation and go ahead with the new committee.