India to explore developing engine for military jets with Rolls Royce Published August 17, 2019 | By admin SOURCE: **** NEWS NETWORK

After French multinational aircraft engine company, Safran asked India to invest close to 6000 Crores and committed to investing 3000 crores of its investment as part of Rafale offset obligations to revive India’s now stalled Kaveri engine program, DRDO is now considering having talks with Britain’s engineering major Rolls Royce after French offer was considered too pricey by DRDO. DRDO already has invested over 3000 crores in the Kaveri engine program but an additional investment for 6000 crores only to get core section of M-88-3 engines which included custom modification of the new Kaveri engine with Indian developed technology, and later certification of the modified engine along with technology transfer could have meant that SAFRAN enjoyed Royalty for its tech for decades to come. DRDO officials informed **** that at least for Tejas Mk1A and MWF-Mk2 fighter jet program they are sticking with American GE developed F404-IN20 (84 kN) and F414-GE-INS6 (98 kN) turbofan engines and Even for Naval Mk2 program, GE’s F414-GE-INS6 turbofan engines are preferred but the problem with GE has being is that these engines are brought off the shelf and has no option of even local license assembly let alone any Transfer of Technology of Key core technology. Prototypes of India’s 5th Generation AMCA Stealth fighter jets will use GE’s F414-GE-INS6 turbofan engines in the initial stage but the aircraft requires more powerful engine which can generate 110 kN of Thrust class over what current GE engines can generate 98 kN for which GE has offered India its F414 Enhanced Engine which it says will be ready by 2022. F414 Enhanced Engine which has been under development for the US Navy for its F/A-18 E/F and EA 18G aircraft fleet will be able to generate around 116 kN Thrust class which is 18% improvement over Standard F414 engines. GE believes F414 Enhanced Engines which will go into production by 2022 and already has orders worth $630 million from US Navy to replace older engines in its aircraft will make it a perfect fit for the AMCA program since the developmental cost of the program already is funded by US Navy. British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon in his visit to India in 2017 had offered India to jointly develop a new engine based on EuroJet turbofan engine which powers Eurofighter Typhoon. The UK already has invited India to co-develop a sixth-generation fighter called the Tempest but no decision has been taken yet but India is yet to take a call on co-development offer on both engine and new 6th generation fighter aircraft with the United Kingdom. Military think tanks in India have called for the revival of Kaveri engine program so that India is not left behind in the development of military-grade turbo class engines for its fighter and transport aircraft programs and have called upon Modi government to inject program with more funds and new engineers and scientist along with the participation of private sector to kick start the program again. DRDO officials who spoke to **** believes the key decision on the direction of the program will be taking place next few months, will DRDO get-go head to have talks with Rolls Royce or new core team will be formed to develop new higher thrust engines with fresh funding what will chart the future course of military jet engines development in India.

India to explore developing engine for military jets with Rolls Royce – Indian Defence Research Wing .
not the first time India ask RR to help on Kaveri....
I'm afraid the cost will be in the same region. And don't forget that EJ200 is not intelectual property of RR.... so there will be some problems to come.

What is the last fully RR developped fighter engine? Spey If I remember well. 60th technology.
XG40 was just a prototyp.
 
ALL IS SAID :
The trajectory of the Kaveri Engine programme over the past decade, with many false starts and detours, suggest that all the stakeholders on the Indian side have failed to appreciate the depth of the problem.
 
India, France to hold talks on defence buys today | India News

Indrani Bagchi | TNN | Updated: Aug 29, 2019, 5:49 IST

PARIS: Within a week of the Modi-Macron summit, India and France will hold a strategic dialogue to talk acquisition and development of defence equipment. NSA Ajit Doval will host his counterpart, Emmanuel Bonne in New Delhi on Thursday to take forward the decisions taken at the August 22 summit.

According to officials, on the table for the high-level discussion would be the next order for fighter aircraft, among other defence equipment.

France is keen to pick up another order of Rafale fighter jets after the first 36 are ready to be delivered. These would be on international bidding. The US also wants to hawk its F-21 aircraft, while Sweden is hoping to sell its Gripen.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh will be here in September for the hand over of the first Rafale. Indian pilots will be trained in France so it may be a while before the jet makes its way to India.

Of much greater significance and far more ambitious is a new India-France project to co-develop and co-build a next generation jet engine for use by India. The lead French defence company in the reckoning here is Safran. There is little clarity on how this will be developed in India, including agencies and companies to be involved. What is clear is that the project has been nicknamed INFRA. Modi may have been hinting at this when he said after his meeting with Macron here that India and France were building INFRA in several sectors.

If it happens, this would be momentous — there aren’t that many companies in the world that can build jet engines. If India does achieve the feat, it would go a long way in giving the country autonomy in defence purchases.

It is rumoured that the outgoing French ambassador to India, Alexander Ziegler may be joining Safran, making negotiations much less problematic. This kind of movement is fairly common among envoys who have served in India where they get get snapped up by the private sector to help navigate the opaque Indian system.

Doval has been the point-person in the Modi government to lead the discussion on defence acquisitions. The government's decision to set up the chief of defence staff, officials say, will go a long way to easing friction between the services both on inter-operability as well as streamlining acquisitions. Doval met with Bonne in Osaka on the sidelines of the G-20. The decision by both governments to hold a strategic dialogue so soon after a summit is a sign of the urgency which is invested in these decisions.

India, France to hold talks on defence buys today | India News - Times of India
 
Short answer : No
Short reason : No proactive thinking
Up In Arms: Ukrainian Aircraft-Engine Plant Caught Up In U.S.-China Rivalry
Up In Arms: Ukrainian Aircraft-Engine Plant Caught Up In U.S.-China Rivalry

Why Indian govt keeps sleeping whenever an opportunity of this proportionate comes by. Why Chinese take lead. We should too have put in our hat and bid for this company. It would have given access to jet engines of several types and power. And above all experienced Staff and technology to pursue our own Jet engine.
Again no proactive thinking. Chinese jump on the very first opportunity they come across.....😠😠
 
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Safran presentation to rajnath singh.
 
View attachment 10657

Safran presentation to rajnath singh.

Complete transfer of know-how and know-why allowing India to be fully autonomous in the future.

This is gold and must be acquired at any cost. If we let this opportunity pass, we are missing out on 10 years of development time again! For Pete's sake, stop playing cheap and grab the golden ticket India! :(

P.S: lol at the genius who had the audacity to click a picture of something titled Confidential and share it to press :rolleyes:

Good Day!
 
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Rajnath’s Paris Visit Puts Spotlight On Indian Jet Engine’s Fight For Survival

By Shiv Aroor; Oct 09 2019
4:21 pm
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After a day centred around the milestone Rafale handover to the Indian Air Force, topped off handily with a flight in the IAF’s first Rafale jet, Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh today continued his official engagements in France with a visit to Safran’s engine building facility (formerly Snecma) in Villaroche near Paris. The minister was given the usual protocol briefings by Safran executives on the company’s many proposals for India — chiefly a near collapsed venture to rescue the Indian DRDO’s Kaveri jet engine with a techno-financial infusion from Safran.

According to the original plan, Safran, which manufactures the M88 turbofan engines on the Rafale, was to partner with DRDO to fix all problems with the struggling Kaveri engine and bring up to the mark for fitment on India’s Light Combat Aircraft and future air platforms. This partnership was to be part of the offsets obligations under the 2016 Rafale deal, under which the companies that contribute to the Rafale’s major systems (Dassault, Thales, MBDA and Safran) have to plow back nearly Euro 4 billion back into India. While the other three already have structured plans on how they will comply with the offset obligations, recent reports suggest Safran’s partnership proposal with DRDO on the Kaveri has turned out to be unworkable for financial reasons — chiefly that the scope of work would mean DRDO forking out most of the cost of the revival.

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To be sure, the terms of the proposed Safran-DRDO joint effort were ambitious, and had been on for at least a year before the Rafale was declared winner in India’s collapsed MMRCA contest. The Rafale deal provided the financial framework for the joint enterprise. Safran was to step in with offsets dollars and technology to modify, certify and integrate the Kaveri engine on a Light Combat Aircraft airframe before 2020, with a later clause in the partnership mandating modifications on the Kaveri for a twin-engine configuration on India’s AMCA fifth generation fighter concept, followed by an altered non-reheat version for the Ghatak UCAV.

Livefist can confirm that the Indian defence minister was briefed about the Safran-DRDO partnership proposal in general terms today, but no mention was made about where things currently stand. While talks between Safran and the DRDO have apparently reached an impasse over cost and the modalities of execution, it is clear that any next steps will require a political decision to move forward.

In a presentation to the visiting Indian defence minister Safran CEO Olivier Andries said, “India should provide an attractive business environment and not terrorise us with its tax and customs rules.” He also shared plans for the company to invest $150 million towards training and maintenance of the engines that will power the IAF’s Rafales.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his delegation also took part in the second India-France Ministerial level Annual Defence Dialogue with a French delegation led by France’s Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly yesterday.

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The Kaveri engine, still displayed without fail at every Indian defence-trade show, has remained idle for most purposes for at least three years. In 2017, Livefist reported on how a mysterious noise during high power trials was the latest in a string of ailments that bedeviled the program. Earlier this year, in an inevitable decision, Livefist confirmed that the Kaveri engine’s development had been officially de-linked from the AMCA and LCA Mk.2 (Medium Weight Fighter) programs, with both jets be powered (at least in the development phase) by the GE F414 turbofan engine.


The Kaveri’s struggles have been a defining and oft-criticised thread running through the DRDO’s efforts at making the Indian Air Force self-reliant in the crucial domain of aero engines.

Former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash, a war decorated fighter pilot, said in a series of tweets earlier this year, “Myopic if MoD & DRDO don’t realize that the future of India’s aeronautics industry is linked to the success of the Kaveri. Any price is worth paying, if someone can help make it deliver 90 kN+. Would open endless possibilities and put us ahead of China, still struggling for an engine. The Kaveri has been under development by DRDO for 33 yrs now. Enough time lost. We must stop trying to re-invent the wheel & leap-frog in time by borrowing or buying a reliable core (M-88?). We must also acquire metallurgy & other badly needed technology by paying for it. Success of Kaveri would have meant huge loss of business to engine makers worldwide. No prizes for guessing why it has languished for over 3 decades. But still not too late to infuse latest technology and design LCA Mk 2 & AMCA around it. Kaveri could be a star of ‘Make it in India’.

Apart from the Kaveri, the DRDO is also developing a mini-turbofan engine to power its Nirbhay long range cruise missile. HAL is also testing a 25KN engine HTFE-25 to power small aircraft and possibly drones. The DRDO itself is understood to have envisaged a fresh 110KN turbofan engine project to succeed the Kaveri, such as it is. But without channels of urgent technology to fix what has crippled the program from meeting requirements for over three decades, it is unclear what the DRDO’s next steps will be. Aircraft are — and must be — designed around engines, not the other way round.

https://www.livefistdefence.com/201...on-indian-jet-engines-fight-for-survival.html
 
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not related, but some details about indian M2K modernization : Radar RDY400
Yes. The Kaveri project will be officially closed and a new project will be announced. Though I expect no announcement yet.

Important : DOnot allow implicit knowledge gained during Kaveri project to leave.
 
French Rafale jet engine maker offers to help India make indigenous fighter jet engine

The French company which makes engines for Rafale jets has said that it can help Indian make its first indigenous fighter aircraft engine.


By Abhishek Bhalla

Paris
October 9, 2019; 21:53 IST
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India’s first indigenous fighter jet engine proposed

French company Safran that manufactures the M88 engine used in Rafale fighter jets has proposed to India that it can help make its first indigenous fighter aircraft engine.

A proposal was sent to the Defence and Development Research Organisation (DRDO) about this, Olivier Andries, CEO Safran said on Wednesday giving a brief to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the company’s military and civil projects in India.

"They are studying the proposal sent by us. We are willing to transfer the technology and this could be the way forward for the first indigenous fighter aircraft engine," he told India Today TV.

The Mirage fighter jets use M53 variant of the engine.

"It will be a big boost for Make in India if the proposal works out. It means India would be able to sell the engine to any country that uses Rafale," said an Indian official.

Defence Minister Rajnath visited the facility in Villaroche near Paris a day after the handing over of the first Rafale jet to the Indian Air Force.

He was given a presentation and did a tour of the facility on Indian interests.

Sources said studies have also been done for the possibility of manufacturing an indigenous engine for Indian made Light Combat Aircraft Tejas.

The two countries expect further enhancement of their ties, especially in the arena of defence cooperation.

"We will support the Make In India policy. Let us look at the future. You didn’t just opt for a fighter but opted for enhancement of military partnership. We will do our best to meet your requirement," French Defence Minister Florence Parly said after the induction of Rafale.

The two defence ministers met for the second defence dialogue on Tuesday evening and reviewed the status of bilateral defence cooperation, which is a key pillar of the India-France Strategic Partnership.

"They also exchanged views on contemporary regional and international developments of mutual interest. Both sides discussed ways to further deepen defence-related official as well as operational level interactions. Both sides agreed to expand the scope and complexity of the existing regular bilateral joint exercises," a defence ministry spokesman said.

Recognising that India-France partnership in the Indian Ocean Region is crucial for preserving and promoting the common strategic and security interests, the two Ministers noted the continuing implementation of actions outlined in the "Joint Strategic Vision of India-France Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region" (March 2018). The Ministers also reaffirmed the strong intention of the two sides to further deepen bilateral cooperation on counter-terrorism.

French Rafale jet engine maker offers to help India make indigenous fighter jet engine