In various interactions questions are asked during the Q & A session. Started this series on addressing these valid and interesting questions by giving my views and commenting on them.
RECENT QUERRY AND MY TAKE ON IT
Question. Questions related to IAF and Atmanirbharta, Indigenisation and Make in India.
Comments. IAF has always encouraged the development of indigenous defence production. IAF firmly believes that indigenisation reduces our dependence on foreign sources and leads to economic growth of the nation. IAF always endeavours to achieve self-sufficiency through focused, sustained and evolved indigenisation programmes. It is one of the key result areas of the IAF.
Various Indigenised inductions and projects being supported are as follows:
- Induction of LCA (IOC, FOC, Mk I and Mk 1A) and support to LCA Mk II and AMCA.
- Earlier Induction of Ajeet and HF-24 Marut ac.
- Induction of AEW&C ac and support to indigenous AWACS project.
- Induction of ALH.
- Support to replacement of Avro ac through make in India route.
- Support to CIWS through make in India route.
- Induction and support to several indigenous radars. (Indra, Rohini, Arudhra and Long range surveillance radar).
- Indigenous production of chaffs and flares, ammunitions and fuses for bombs.
- Integration of Astra Air to Air Missile and Brahmos Air to surface missiles.
- Support to weapons projects like New Generation Anti-tank Missile, Smart anti airfield weapons, new generation anti-radiation missile and Glide bombs etc.
- Induction of trainer aircraft (Kiran Mk I and Mk II, HT-2, HTT-40).
- Induction of Akash SRSAM system and support to MRSAM and LRSAM projects.
Other efforts include:
- Support to Aeronautical Development Agency and National Flight Test Centre.
- Identification of MSMEs for MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) of military aviation equipment.
- Upgrades through indigenous route. Mig-29 upgrade by Base Repair Depot, Jaguar and M-2000 upgrade by HAL, AN-32 upgrade and Digitisation of Pechora SAM systems
- Indigenisation of thousands of lines and spares.
- Creation of Nodal Technical Centres at BRDs and EDs to give impetus to innovation.
- Conducting regular seminars on indigenisation along with all the stake holders.
IAF has been many times accused of not supporting indigenisation with remarks like “Air Marshals always want to play with foreign toys”. This is far from the truth.
Comments and value additions are most welcome
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Comprehensive. Covered all efforts made towards Atamnirbhata.
these are major ones. There are many more.
Dear Sir,
Regarding the defense indigenous efforts for making an aircraft jet engine, here are my comments.
1. The final frontier of aerospace technology is the design and production of an aircraft jet engine.
2. There are quite a few countries that can make aircraft-carriers, destroyers, missiles of all shapes and sizes, nuclear weapons, AWACS, radars, moon-buggies, nuclear submarines, main battle tanks and so on, but they are unable to produce a reasonable-power-level aircraft jet engine.
3. Currently, there are 3 countries that produce all the jet engines that power the medium to heavy commercial aircraft, namely, UK (Rolls-Royce), USA ( GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney) and Russia.
4. For the production of military jet engines, apart from the above 3 countries, France also makes military jet engines with Safran Aircraft Engines, making the military jet engine like the M88 which powers the Rafael fighter.
5. China has claimed that they have acquired single crystal metal turbine blade technology and have produced a production standard military jet engine, however, their efforts have largely been limited to go for reverse engineering. There is no proper Chinese designed jet engine which can meet the normal required performance standard to power their copied jet fighters.
5. Japanese company IHI and a South Korean company have also made significant progress in trying to come up with a workable aircraft jet engine.
6. There are media news that India, now realizing that a modern jet engine is essential and Kaveri engine is not going to provide what is needed, wants to develop a jet engine with Rolls-Royce and have full technology know-how transferred to India by Rolls-Royce.
7. It is suggested that in order to achieve full technology transfer and know-how, the following points must be established.
8. If the Indian authorities end-up agreeing that there will be separate Indian teams and separate Rolls-Royce teams which will undertake responsibilities in their technical area of expertise and develop an engine, it won’t work in getting the required technology know-how. The only sure way of achieving full technology transfer and technical know-how is to do the following:
A. Must make sure that there are at least 2 or 3 Indian engineers in each of the organized team whether that team is located in India or in the UK by Rolls-Royce.
B. These 2 or 3 Indian engineers must be part of the following jet engine technology teams:
1. Front fan blade aerodynamic profile and mechanical design teams.
2. Compressor aerodynamic and mechanical design teams – both for low pressure and high pressure.
3. Combustor and fuel injector design teams.
4. High pressure and low pressure turbine blade and nozzle guide vane aerodynamic profile design and mechanical design teams.
5. Turbine blade and nozzle guide vane film cooling design and analysis teams.
6. Thermal analysis team using ANSYS or Rolls-Royce in-house thermal analysis software.
7. After-burner/Reheat design team.
8. Intake and exhaust nozzle design teams.
9. Casing, bearing and gear design teams.
10. Fuel system and control/FADEC design and specification teams.
11. Oil system design team with full access to Rolls-Royce in-house oil system software.
12. Disk design teams.
13. Anti-icing design team.
14. Secondary flow/internal flow design and analysis team, and full access to Rolls-Royce in-house secondary flow software called SPAN.
15. Engine Performance team.
16. Material technology team.
17. Acoustic/noise analysis team.
18. Engine Fire extinguisher team.
19. Instrument specification and selection teams.
20. Manufacturing teams.
21. Full engine and component testing teams.
Thanks Narender. That is a very accurate and comprehensive take on the issue of jet engine manufacture. I am going to post and publish it as your your contribution.