NEWS
In its report tabled in the Lok Sabha recently, the Parliament’s standing committee on defence dealt with a variety of issues including delay in the Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA) project. The committee pointed at the “sorry state of affairs” in the project, which is to see the light of the day 27 years after being sanctioned. The panel said the various problems faced with the Tejas engine should be sorted out expeditiously. The Tejas should be commissioned either by choosing the option of importing the engine or persisting with (the indigenous) Kaveri (engine). “All steps should be taken so that Tejas is operational by the stipulated timeframe and there is no further cost escalation,” the committee maintained.

VIEWS
In accordance with the Long-term Re-equipment Plan drawn up in 1981, a programme to develop an LCA, incorporating a number of advanced technologies was launched two years later to replace the fleet of MiG-21s in due course. Responsibility to evolve a design for the LCA and of overall project management was entrusted to the newly created Aeronautical Development Agency. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was to be the manufacturing agency. Although technical assistance was sought from Israel and France, there was no formal arrangement for collaboration with any global aerospace major. Hope for US assistance was dashed by a sanctions regime.

In 1986, as a project on parallel track, development of aero engine GTX-35VS Kaveri to power LCA prototypes was initiated under the Gas Turbine Research Establishment. There was no comprehensive foreign collaboration.

It is indeed a cause for deep disappointment for the IAF that despite the staggering levels of investment, even after nearly three decades, timeframe for induction of the LCA into operational service remains somewhat uncertain. Development of the Kaveri engine appears to have reached a dead end and the two projects were formally delinked in 2008 necessitating search for a new engine for the production models of the Tejas.

While the LCA, christened Tejas, has been undergoing developmental flights with the underpowered GE 404 engine, there are three options for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in the selection of an engine that would meet the qualitative requirements stipulated by the IAF for the power plant. These include identifying an engine already available in the market, developing an entirely new engine, or going ahead with development of the Kaveri. However, each option is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. There are engines with the requisite thrust rating available in the market, but are over-sized. Such an engine would need redesign of the fuselage, air intake, wings, etc, of the LCA. This would tantamount to practically developing a new airplane requiring repeat of some, if not all the developmental flights completed so far. All these would ultimately translate into interminable delay.

Development of a new engine even with foreign collaboration may take years because of rapid advances in technology, and complexity of the process. So, time and cost overruns in such cases do happen. It took Snecma, one of the leading manufacturers of aero engines, 13 years to develop the M88 for the Rafale. Of late, the Airbus A400M and the Sukhoi T-50 fifth generation combat aircraft projects have suffered considerable slippages and cost escalation owing to major glitches in the engine development programmes. As for the third option of further development of the Kaveri, possibility of any significant performance upgradation appears remote as the technology employed is more than a quarter century old and is virtually obsolete.