Indigenous fighter programme remains a work in progress

WHEN the Vice Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), Air Marshal AP Singh, publicly states that “Aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) shouldn’t be a buzzword at the cost of the nation’s defence and should be pursued holistically in letter and spirit”, the matter needs a close look. The Air Marshal has tried to bring to the nation’s notice the acute shortage of fighters and consequential under-strength of the IAF — 31 squadrons against the sanctioned strength of 42.
So, where does the problem lie? How to sort things out? What are the options for the government and the IAF? Since the focus is on Aatmanirbharta, it points to a deficiency in indigenous fighter production and a diminishing fleet resulting in reduced fighting capability of the Air Force. One, therefore, has to link indigenous fighter production to the big picture.
The most critical aspect of the indigenous fighter programme of any country is the engine/power plant of the flying machine, without which it is a non-starter. There are broadly nine manufactured sub-units/instruments which need to be interfaced to make a machine fly; fuselage, flying controls, structure, landing gear, power plant (engine), systems, avionics, equipment and armament. With the modern computer-aided design and computer-aided maintenance, Indian engineers and technologists surely can do eight out of nine jobs efficiently. Nevertheless, it’s the power plant which constitutes the most challenging task, requiring sustained research and development by the best of brains and test-flying. Thus, just as no Rolls Royce is Rolls Royce without a matching engine, a fighter without a power plant at best could be an exciting item on display in a park or a museum for those aspiring to be pilots.
India, therefore, has its task cut out with regard to an aero-engine. India does have a full-fledged fighter engine-manufacturing Gas Turbine Research Establishment in Bengaluru. However, going by the list of fighter users, as gleaned from the last 50 years’ editions of the annual Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft (JAWA) and the recently launched Janes Aero-Engines, it transpires that no single-engine fighter today can be considered useful if its thrust is less than 30,000 pounds static and without additional power generated by the afterburner during critical air-to-air missions. Unfortunately, JAWA reports that the ‘performance ratings’ of “India’s first indigenously produced jet engine” Kaveri are “maximum dry 11,462-pound static thrust” and “maximum 19,000-pound static thrust with afterburner” (static thrust is the thrust developed by an airplane engine that is at rest with respect to the earth and the surrounding air). That would certainly pose problems pertaining to aerial power-to-weight combat for IAF pilots, being below par by modern fighter standards, notwithstanding different roles for different fighters.
The IAF squadron’s single-engine Mirage-2000, imported from France in 1985, has the Snecma M53 power plant’s 21,385-pound static thrust, making it a potent “single-seat interceptor and air superiority fighter”. What helped America’s General Dynamics F-16 with one Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 engine succeed in the military market and combat missions was essentially the generation of 25,000-pound static thrust, which has gone up exponentially to ensure its longevity and durability — having been in ops for almost 50 years. F-16 production changed hands from General Dynamics to Lockheed Martin, but it now has two engine makers: the 29,100-pound static thrust Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 and General Electric’s 29,588-pound static thrust F110-GE-129 power plant.
Fast-forward to the 21st century. Lockheed Martin’s multirole F35 single Pratt & Whitney power plant generates 40,000-pound-plus thrust, making it one of the heaviest ‘maximum take-off weight’ fighter of 15.785 tonnes in the single-engine category with an impressive maximum payload of 8.165 tonnes. The quality and efficiency of the engine make the machine airworthy and a potential victor.
The fundamental feature of the fighter, therefore, is the engine. The superiority of the single power plant’s thrust and quality enhance the craft’s payload, range, armament and avionics, and give it the ability to out-endure the weaker and feebler engine in the air. This is the reason no country parts with its high-tech engine for any customer, however big the order of the fighters.
The Air Marshal must have been in agony because without doubt India has missed the fighter tech bus. Yet, the vision of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, had helped India make a splendid start as famous German aeronautics expert Kurt Tank was invited to design and develop HF-24 Marut, the first indigenous single-seat twin-engine ground attack fighter in 1956 at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Bengaluru. It was one of the finest chapters for the IAF, which formed three squadrons of HF-24 Marut- 10, 31 and 220 and operated during the 1971 India-Pakistan war without a single loss. Subsequently, the slide began. After the 1977 election defeat of Indira Gandhi, her successor shut India’s promising combat craft programme. Consequently, it took six long years for an indigenous fighter enterprise to re-emerge in 1983 as the ‘Light Combat Aircraft’ during Indira’s tenure as PM. If the government of the day pushes back India’s indigenous fighter programme, don’t blame outsiders.
Today, India’s indigenous fighter engine enterprise has reached a ‘now or never’ stage. But then, who will cooperate with India? Theoretically, though, there are 23 aviation engine-producing countries; let’s not count the US and China — the former for imposing impossible terms and the latter for being hostile since the 1950s. That leaves only Europe and Russia as potential partners for the fighter engine. The latter has its own priorities amid the Ukraine war, but Europe is bound to be a tough customer. Hence, the combat aero engine has to be linked with any Free Trade Agreement between the West and India. Nothing else could be of any use to India, especially if one takes Delhi for granted for one-way trade traffic.