India to develop jet engines for aircrafts with foreign collaboration

On November 29, 2021, Indian government informed in Parliament that, India is to develop jet engines for aircrafts like Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)  in association with the International Engine House.

Key points

• Presently, the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas is integrated with an imported engine.
• For this, indigenous engines will soon be developed.
• Such indigenous engines will also be used to power Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

Why new indigenous engine will be developed?

Flight Operational Clearance (FOC) configuration of LCA Tejas demands higher thrust as compared to the intended engine requirement. Hence the Kaveri in present architecture cannot be integrated. A modified engine version will be required to induct with LCA Tejas. Thus, for development of proposed engine, technological capabilities built through Kaveri engine project will be used.

Which engines power the LCA variant?

The LCA FOC variant and the Mk1A variant are powered by GE-F404 engines. On the other hand, LCA-Mk2 and AMCA will be powered by a more powerful GE-F414 engines, in initial phases.

Project Kaveri

The Project Kaveri was sanctioned by Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in 1989. The project ran for 30 years with an expenditure of Rs 2035.56 crore. It witnessed the development of nine full prototype engines as well as four core engines. Under the project, 3217 hours of engine testing was conducted. It also completed altitude tests and Flying Test Bed (FTB) trials.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2021