NEW DELHI: After spending more than Rs 400 crore, the ambitious project to develop a jet engine to power homemade combat jets seems to have finally been brought on track.
Kaveri, India’s jet engine, has achieved an important milestone in Russia where it has been tested on a IL-76 transport aircraft successfully.
Defence scientists are satisfied with the performance of the engine at Flight Test Bed facility in Russia where 11 trials have been carried out.
Till last month, the trials have logged 20 hours of flying.
The Russian IL-76 transport aircraft, also flown extensively by IAF, is a four engine aircraft. During the trials, one of the engines was replaced by Kaveri for the testing purposes. The engine went through various performance parameters during the flight.
Defence Research and Development Organisation officials have been upbeat about the achievement that could lead to full operationalisation of the engine. The tests were carried out up to 12 km (around 40,000 ft) of altitude and a maximum forward speed of 0.7 Mach under different operating conditions.
Before it was fitted onto IL-76, Kaveri underwent extensive ground test at Gromov Flight Research Institute in Russia. The achievement is significant as critics had favoured that the project, initiated more than two decades ago, should be shelved because a lot of money was wasted and scientists had hit a dead end. It was then decided to look for foreign partners.
The engine required optimisation for lower weight and higher performance for it to be used in Light Combat Aircraft and the other next general aircraft for IAF. It was then decided that the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) would join hands with Russian Central Institute of Aviation Motors for taking the Kaveri project forward.
After the latest trial, Kaveri is now flight worthy. Between 2007 and 2010, the government spent around `422 crore on the project.
Scientists hope that it would soon be ready for full integration with the IAF fighter jet programme.