Kaveri to get its date with LCA-Tejas, with French assistance

Source : IDRW

Kaveri engine (File Photo)

The pace of work on the Dry Kaveri engine development as an offshoot of the Kaveri engine is progressing well and soon it will head to Russia by mid this year to commence a series of tests that are planned on a Russian Il-76 aircraft using it as Flight Test Bed (FTB) at a Russian facility. Dry Kaveri will replace one of the four engines of the Il-76 and the tests to be carried out up to 12 km maximum altitude and a maximum forward speed of 0.7 Mach and under different operating conditions to validate the engine performance.

Bangalore-based Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) under DRDO, is also working on a new afterburner section for the new Dry engine that will be able to generate 73-78kN Class of thrust when the afterburner is engaged. While the Dry Kaveri engine will be used to power the upcoming Unmanned Remote Strike Aircraft program, the Kaveri engine with the afterburner section will eventually be tested on the older LSP LCA-Tejas aircraft as a technology demonstrator program and also has proof of concept by 2026-27 as informed to idrw.org.

Safran, a French multinational aircraft engine that carried out the technical audit of the Kaveri engine cleared it for inflight trials of the new engine after long-term issues with its core were identified and fixed in the last few years. Successful trials in Russia will clear its path to be ground tested with a new afterburner section that is currently been fabricated and later to be integrated into LCA-Tejas aircraft for further trials.

Kaveri engine program already has been delinked from the LCA-Tejas program as no re-engineering program with upgraded or uprated Kaveri engine has been planned for Tejas Mk1 or Mk1A fleet as this aircraft will continue to be powered by American supplied F-404 engines but there are speculations that Kaveri with AF will find its way into another project other then Unmanned Remote Strike Aircraft program eventually.

GTRE will soon start work with an international partner to develop a new 110kN Class Wet engine for the AMCA program that will eventually also be used for the Navy’s TEDBF and Tejas Mk2 fleet at a later stage.

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