LCA Tejas MK2

A revised roadmap dealing with the propulsion system for both the Tejas Mk.1A and the LCA-AF Mk.2 multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) is slowly but graduallyemerging, following the satisfactory conclusion of recently-held negotiations between India’s MoD-owned Defence R & D Organisation (DRDO) and France’s SAFRAN Group.

If and when it is implemented (it is still awaiting authorisation from the Govt of India), the planned 83 Tejas Mk.1As will use the GE-supplied F404-IN20turbofans, and after these engines reach the end of their total technical service lives (TTSL), they will be replaced by a new 98kN-thrust (with afterburning) turbofan that will use the M88-2 engine’s core section supplied off-the-shelf by France’s SAFRAN, while up to 60% of the turbofan’s components will be derived from those already developed by the DRDO’s Bengaluru-based Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) for the Kaveri turbofan. All these modified components (including second-generation single-crystal turbine blades) will be co-developed with the help of military-technical mentoring by SAFRAN. So, for 83 Tejas Mk.1A MRCAs, the turbofans to be procured should comprise 83 F404-GE-IN20s, plus 83of those turbofans that will be co-developed by GTRE and SAFRAN.

For the LCA-AF Mk.2 MRCA, the turbofan to be co-developed by GTRE and SAFRAN will, from the very outset, become the definitive propulsion system. However, the question of exactly how many LCA-AF Mk.2s need to be ordered has not yet been answered by the Indian Air Force (IAF).


M88-2 Turbofan

This, in turn means that GTRE and SAFRAN will have until 2026 to come up with the definitive turbofan for the commencement of airworthiness-related flight-testregime for both the Tejas Mk.1A and the LCA-AF Mk.2’s weaponised prototypes. Initially, however, the LCA-AF Mk.2’s flying prototypes will be powered by F414-GE-INS6 turbofans.


GTRE's Kaveri Turbofan

As I had explained earlier, it all depends on how or whether at all SOUND COMMON SENSE can be or cannot be applied. Let me elaborate: the Jaguar IS/DARIN-3 platforms, even after re-engining, will be able to stay in service for only another 15 years. Since these aircraft are now used for tactical air interdiction and battlefield air-interdiction (since the deep-strike roles will be taken over by the Rafales and several Su-30MKIs, while tacticalinterdiction/defensive counter-air roles will eventually be taken over by up to 150 single-engined imported MRCA like the F-16 Block 70), there exists a market for fourth-generation battlefield air-interdiction/defensive counter-air MRCAs—roughly 160 aircraft—required for replacing the Jaguar IS/DARIN-3 platforms. This is where the LCA-AF Mk.2 ought to come in, but the project will have to be INTELLIGENTLY managed, i.e. make the MoD-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) the prime contractor answerable to IAF HQ, while reducing the DRDO’s Bengaluru-based Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) to just a design services provider. HAL in turn should be empowered through sufficient managerial autonomy to appoint its own clusters of public-sector/private-sector vendors as sub-systems/components suppliers, so that HAL does only final-assembly and systems integration.


Kaveri components

Above all, HAL must be allowed to come up with a financial plan under which such an industrial consortium will be required to put up 80% of the LCA-AF Mk.2’s non-recurring developmental costs, this of course being offset by a guaranteed, irrevocable order for 160 LCA-AF Mk.2s. HAL in turn must be able to guarantee a fully functional/ certified, weaponised LCA-AF Mk.2 at best by 2028 (if developmental work commences in 2018). If this is done, then the IAF will not have to worry about incurring additional costs for force modernisation and it will then stop opposing the LCA-AF Mk.2’s service-induction. Similarly, the Indian Navy (IN) should be bold enough to use a variant of the LCA-AF Mk.2 as a shore-based maritime-strike platform. Meanwhile, thetandem-seater version of the Tejas Mk.1A can be made to serve as lead-in fighter-trainers (LIFT) for both the IAF and IN.

All this is definitely doable from both financial and military-industrial standpoints, but it will require enormous amounts of sound common-sense to be pooled from within the Union Ministry of Finance, MoD, and the IAF and IN HQs so that a comprehensive project management roadmap can be articulated and adhered to without any deviations.


General Electric F414-GE-INS6

Interestingly, the IAF has mandated that IF the fifth-generation AMCA is to be indigenously developed by ADA, then use must be made of F414-GE-INS6 turbofans for that portion of the flight-test regime that is dedicated to the optimisation of the medium-weight AMCA’s airframe (the Su-57 FGFA on the other hand is a heavyweight fifth-generation MRCA), flight-control logic and the digital fly-by-wire flight control system.