Fighter jet engine deal with India to start this year: GE Aerospace's Amy Gowder

indushek said:
Your point about HR per se, is it kind of Men out of Men Money Material allocated for any project?

Yes from what I read from the engine threw blades, pointing towards Material science deficiency. Good thing is it did get sorted out, and last year or so the engine passed high altitude test. Wish they could build a test bed here, out of ageing IL 76 that we have.

Its the after burner that now needs work

West is way ahead on so many things, wonder how long we will take it narrow down this gap.
Click to expand...

Afterburner is not hard to do tbh....its relative cherry on the cake. It only gets complicated if you want to reduce the thermal signature etc. But basic one is straightforward. i.e In the end it works with and augments what the engine itself provides to it. So if the kaveri engine is actually sorted out, then AB is really not much of an issue. The earlier problem was the AB could not make up for the shortfalls of the engine (dry thrust not being met or reliable in operation long enough) itself....as AB is highly inefficient to begin with.

But yes the men. Corps of Men are what then make the argument on money and material needed from the reality they best know (what are the best sized teams and organisation etc) that influences the higher-ups that are not subject matter experts but do have the purse strings and (hopefully) intuitively get the scarcity of the situation and what are the pressing needs/results of the first high priority.

I work on something very specialised in this (jet engine) realm, but its only possible because there is a large formation of men (and women) tasked with things as best as can be, we inherit lot of things and best practices and the IP database etc from those before us similarly.

Take a selection sampling of us and put us (hypothetical time machine etc) in the 1950s - 1990s India situation (somewhere), and we will have to do a whole different manner of things and at great difficulty given much less of backdrop that can be taken for granted (it needs charting out and experience to develop these shoulders and boulders)....as already scarce situation with most of the best peers being in: nukes, missiles, space and electronics (radars, sensors etc) to some degree, these are all tied together for a reason and have most to show for today for a reason.

My uncle worked in BEL Bangalore for example (now hes long retired). LRDE and BEL produced some very good products taken for granted today, again because a suitable corps of HR was allocated here over the time needed. In early 90s my uncle (and his team) visited Ukraine a number of times for essentially ToT and related cooperation workshops that is now upstream of what India has progressed on....and so somewhat unknown/forgotten about. Again in interests of not having to reinvent the wheel, but the ability to absorb and deploy quickly too.

1990s to today, Indian jet engine story is affected by this. There is immense feedback loop that comes to Western companies in the sector from their commercial side, that is leveraged in military projects too.

There's really only one long term way India catches up. It has to develop and bulk up its economy comprehensively so it gets large legions of people consistently producing demand and supply for what the top quality HR folks (in STEM) are able to do....and also producing the far larger pool of people to extract this "1%" from.

Its why South Korea developed as it did, versus North Korea (though North Korea can indeed at great cost to its people deploy limited HR in concentrated way for say nukes and missiles). South Korea has a much larger buffet of RnD and development for its people comprehensively though, as there was simply greater feedback and utilitarian transparency of what works best to mitigate all costs as far as possible (from all layers involved) rather than an extreme top down totalitarian approach "no matter the cost".
 
Nilgiri said:
Afterburner is not hard to do tbh....its relative cherry on the cake. It only gets complicated if you want to reduce the thermal signature etc. But basic one is straightforward. i.e In the end it works with and augments what the engine itself provides to it. So if the kaveri engine is actually sorted out, then AB is really not much of an issue. The earlier problem was the AB could not make up for the shortfalls of the engine (dry thrust not being met or reliable in operation long enough) itself....as AB is highly inefficient to begin with.

But yes the men. Corps of Men are what then make the argument on money and material needed from the reality they best know (what are the best sized teams and organisation etc) that influences the higher-ups that are not subject matter experts but do have the purse strings and (hopefully) intuitively get the scarcity of the situation and what are the pressing needs/results of the first high priority.

I work on something very specialised in this (jet engine) realm, but its only possible because there is a large formation of men (and women) tasked with things as best as can be, we inherit lot of things and best practices and the IP database etc from those before us similarly.

Take a selection sampling of us and put us (hypothetical time machine etc) in the 1950s - 1990s India situation (somewhere), and we will have to do a whole different manner of things and at great difficulty given much less of backdrop that can be taken for granted (it needs charting out and experience to develop these shoulders and boulders)....as already scarce situation with most of the best peers being in: nukes, missiles, space and electronics (radars, sensors etc) to some degree, these are all tied together for a reason and have most to show for today for a reason.

My uncle worked in BEL Bangalore for example (now hes long retired). LRDE and BEL produced some very good products taken for granted today, again because a suitable corps of HR was allocated here over the time needed. In early 90s my uncle (and his team) visited Ukraine a number of times for essentially ToT and related cooperation workshops that is now upstream of what India has progressed on....and so somewhat unknown/forgotten about. Again in interests of not having to reinvent the wheel, but the ability to absorb and deploy quickly too.

1990s to today, Indian jet engine story is affected by this. There is immense feedback loop that comes to Western companies in the sector from their commercial side, that is leveraged in military projects too.

There's really only one long term way India catches up. It has to develop and bulk up its economy comprehensively so it gets large legions of people consistently producing demand and supply for what the top quality HR folks (in STEM) are able to do....and also producing the far larger pool of people to extract this "1%" from.

Its why South Korea developed as it did, versus North Korea (though North Korea can indeed at great cost to its people deploy limited HR in concentrated way for say nukes and missiles). South Korea has a much larger buffet of RnD and development for its people comprehensively though, as there was simply greater feedback and utilitarian transparency of what works best to mitigate all costs as far as possible (from all layers involved) rather than an extreme top down totalitarian approach "no matter the cost".
Click to expand...
Since the time there was news on high altitude tests being a success, for Kaveri dry variant being sent to Russia.. I have been following with great interest.

There is a new fan being used in the engine, that is now called Kaveri dry variant. This is the variant that succeeded in high altitude tests in Russia.

Presently from what I learnt by following two Defense channels, that I usually follow, namely Alpha Defense and Defense Matrix:

There is renewed interest in Kaveri development from the Govt, once the high altitude test of Kaveri dry in Russia was a success.

There is a two ponged approach afoot, one is to power Ghatak UCAV with Kaveri dry variant and the other is to mate Kaveri in present form with a LCA prototype and do a limited envelope flight testing, to prove its worthiness. That if funded and further scaled up, it can become the option for mid life upgrade of LCA (whenever that comes up).

Eight engines are currently being manufactured by Godrej (without afterburner), for further high altitude testing at Russia. This dry variant will eventually makes its way to Ghatak UCAV.

On the other end, a domain expert has been hired for mating Kaveri with Tejas, and some Acoustic India limited has been selected to work on this integration process.

Kaveri dry without afterburner, seems to be producing upto 49KN thrust at present. Along with work on after burner being needed, GTRE is also working on reducing the weight (due to lessons learnt while making Kaveri dry). A expression of interest for procuring, ready to fit nickel alloy blades has been released. Its kind of too technical for me from this point, so will link the video for the source.

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Your two posts on India's HR being limited for Engine development, kind of gave me a perspective that I didn't have before. Like any resource people are limited too (the clever ones in layman terms), so it makes sense as to why we couldn't make proper headway. Wish this happens at least now, as we need to have our own jet engine at the end of the day.
 
GE 80% technology transfer and possibly Safran engine 100% technology transfer will help India to design and build her own robust independent engine manufacturing base..... interesting future ahead.....
 
indushek said:
Since the time there was news on high altitude tests being a success, for Kaveri dry variant being sent to Russia.. I have been following with great interest.

There is a new fan being used in the engine, that is now called Kaveri dry variant. This is the variant that succeeded in high altitude tests in Russia.

Presently from what I learnt by following two Defense channels, that I usually follow, namely Alpha Defense and Defense Matrix:

There is renewed interest in Kaveri development from the Govt, once the high altitude test of Kaveri dry in Russia was a success.

There is a two ponged approach afoot, one is to power Ghatak UCAV with Kaveri dry variant and the other is to mate Kaveri in present form with a LCA prototype and do a limited envelope flight testing, to prove its worthiness. That if funded and further scaled up, it can become the option for mid life upgrade of LCA (whenever that comes up).

Eight engines are currently being manufactured by Godrej (without afterburner), for further high altitude testing at Russia. This dry variant will eventually makes its way to Ghatak UCAV.

On the other end, a domain expert has been hired for mating Kaveri with Tejas, and some Acoustic India limited has been selected to work on this integration process.

Kaveri dry without afterburner, seems to be producing upto 49KN thrust at present. Along with work on after burner being needed, GTRE is also working on reducing the weight (due to lessons learnt while making Kaveri dry). A expression of interest for procuring, ready to fit nickel alloy blades has been released. Its kind of too technical for me from this point, so will link the video for the source.

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Your two posts on India's HR being limited for Engine development, kind of gave me a perspective that I didn't have before. Like any resource people are limited too (the clever ones in layman terms), so it makes sense as to why we couldn't make proper headway. Wish this happens at least now, as we need to have our own jet engine at the end of the day.
Click to expand...


My contact at Midhani was cautiously optimistic. He is retired, but keeps in touch with developments there. They weren't just sitting around w.r.t the problems Kaveri had in the 2010 - 2020 decade....with what GTRE passed to them.

So there should be good results for this decade, let us see. They are also on capital equipment and recruitment drive. There was big jump (a doubling) in capital assets between 2021 and 2022 for example....when this number was steady for last decade or so. Essentially their capex ratio increased from about 15% to above 35% recently....so it suggests more results for this decade coming up (how much of that is related to Kaveri, we have to see).

There is lot anyone that is interested can analyse w.r.t their yearly annual reports:

Annual Reports – Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited

midhani-india.in midhani-india.in

Same can be done with DMRL. This is where the bread and butter is compared to GTRE.

At same time you will gain appreciation just how much more has been the prior inertia w.r.t missiles. Then its guns vs butter issue in HR, do you improve and expand more into missiles (hypersonic etc) versus shoring up more on jet engine. This is how the ToT terms are constructed right now given India commercial side flow for jet engines is non-existent compared to say big 3 in West....so there is disparity in bargaining strength at play. But you work with what you have....just like ISRO did in 1980s.

Like with the "80%" vs "20%" in the ToT stuff being talked about with GE, we have to see what this means in India's wherewithal long term. i.e what is the impact of the 80% and what is impact of the 20%. These are unclear....most of this can only be judged in hindsight.
 
Nilgiri said:
My contact at Midhani was cautiously optimistic. He is retired, but keeps in touch with developments there. They weren't just sitting around w.r.t the problems Kaveri had in the 2010 - 2020 decade....with what GTRE passed to them.

So there should be good results for this decade, let us see. They are also on capital equipment and recruitment drive. There was big jump (a doubling) in capital assets between 2021 and 2022 for example....when this number was steady for last decade or so. Essentially their capex ratio increased from about 15% to above 35% recently....so it suggests more results for this decade coming up (how much of that is related to Kaveri, we have to see).

There is lot anyone that is interested can analyse w.r.t their yearly annual reports:

Annual Reports – Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited

midhani-india.in midhani-india.in

Same can be done with DMRL. This is where the bread and butter is compared to GTRE.

At same time you will gain appreciation just how much more has been the prior inertia w.r.t missiles. Then its guns vs butter issue in HR, do you improve and expand more into missiles (hypersonic etc) versus shoring up more on jet engine. This is how the ToT terms are constructed right now given India commercial side flow for jet engines is non-existent compared to say big 3 in West....so there is disparity in bargaining strength at play. But you work with what you have....just like ISRO did in 1980s.

Like with the "80%" vs "20%" in the ToT stuff being talked about with GE, we have to see what this means in India's wherewithal long term. i.e what is the impact of the 80% and what is impact of the 20%. These are unclear....most of this can only be judged in hindsight.
Click to expand...
20% jump in Capex is a big deal, but like you said we can't be sure as to what its being spread on.

I have always wondered about one thing though, that why have we not been able to rope in Private entities into this kind of work. Some sort of symbiotic relation has to be established, if this has to become a success for longer term.

Kaveri re-worked and maybe succeeded upon within this decade or maybe fifteen years, and then mated with LCA .. then making a new engine for AMCA with French or whoever, all these seem to be a short term solutions don't you think?

Unless there is self sufficiency with respect to material science, and then designing too perhaps we will always be running around for partners. Am also kind of disappointed that, we aren't able to innovate. Its always playing catch up (Ok I admit its too much to ask at this point, considering the past but.. one can always fantasize I guess).
 
indushek said:
20% jump in Capex is a big deal, but like you said we can't be sure as to what its being spread on.

I have always wondered about one thing though, that why have we not been able to rope in Private entities into this kind of work. Some sort of symbiotic relation has to be established, if this has to become a success for longer term.

Kaveri re-worked and maybe succeeded upon within this decade or maybe fifteen years, and then mated with LCA .. then making a new engine for AMCA with French or whoever, all these seem to be a short term solutions don't you think?

Unless there is self sufficiency with respect to material science, and then designing too perhaps we will always be running around for partners. Am also kind of disappointed that, we aren't able to innovate. Its always playing catch up (Ok I admit its too much to ask at this point, considering the past but.. one can always fantasize I guess).
Click to expand...

I will come to this later again in few days. i.e HR corps + Capital importance.

A large conversation is ongoing between associates of mine elsewhere on this topic (but w.r.t USA this time) and there are lot of good takeaways that relate to this topic at large.

Its why in the end company officers are tasked with tactics, field officers with tactics+ low strategy....and flag officers with high strategy and logistics.

Logistics really are the thing that win in the end. HR and Capital are the equivalents for civilian space success as well.
 
onlinpunit said:
A very simple solution..Perform or perish. No more govt bailout.
Before 90s india had so many public sector dodos surviving only on Govt doles. Not anymore.
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How is this going to work ? I supplied 200 Tejas fighters to the Indian Air Force. The air force wants 100 more fighters but an improved variant. Let us say I cannot supply the improved variants. What are you going to do ? If you allow my firm to perish you do not have anyone supporting the original batch of 200 fighters
 
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DDG-80 said:
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It looks truly impressive, congratulations. It's a bit of a long shot, but I'm hopeful that someday India and Vietnam could team up militarily, similar to China and Pakistan. It would be interesting to see in the future.
 
DDG-80 said:
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We are indeed going for monolithic titanium bulkhead.
 
Nilgiri said:
Heh,

Most my friends, barring very few (who can play at my level or better) dont play Poker with me anymore either as I take them to the cleaners consistently.

Its math probabilities, knowing your chip pile and their chip pile (and how chip sizes work and are to be leveraged with the time and situation given) and only then the associated extras (ability of reading others, disguising what they can read of you, managing risks and so on).

Lot of people frontload and focus on the latter bits, rather than getting good at the first bits....as the latter bits appeal to society gup shup and so on much more...its what percolates to movies and amateur social scene readily etc.

Hence they dont understand what good poker players have gotten good at early.

Just like people focus on "insufficient money" funding a program like there is some overabundance of HR to be easily fiscally steered by demand-pull alone.

But its only understood if you know the basics of the chip pile heft and what it dictates upstream and has shaped the downstream.

Exactly the king of thing HR is to any organisation of note. It also applies to other domains in the human realm.

Ike and Yamamoto were GREAT poker players for a reason heh. Ike picked up the game very early as a kid (even with his Quaker mom tut-tutting his time spent with the local illiterate "frontiersman" that taught him the tricks of the trade.... she would be even more disappointed later when he did the "Ma! its a college scholarship" for joining Westpoint against her explicit religious beliefs).

Yamamoto also picked Poker up with great skill apparently. Much later in age in his case compared to Ike....during his sojourns in the US to better finance his recon/understanding of the US and at relative ease too heh.

All things that would play large roles in their own impactful way when the war arrived, and its prioritizing and deploying of resources, tactics and strategies.

Best generals and admirals (poker enthusiasts or not) know how to work with what they have, intuitively grasp the realm of possibilities/probabilities and seek to defeat the opponents forces in detail rather than all at once for a reason.

Civilian peacetime correlation of this is how you deploy HR....to solve tasks sequentially and optimally (as much force concentration upon problems that have been split up and prioritized well), rather than spreading things too thin on everything and getting nowhere for what you put in.

Anyway a thread for maybe @VCheng @Oscar @Fatman17 and any others to peruse over as well.
Click to expand...
My man is playing Mike McDermott IRL.

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