Kaveri engine to be installed in 2018
By IANSThursday, September 16, 2010
BANGALORE - The Indian-built engine for the country’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) may be ready for installation in 2018, a senior official of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has said.
“The gas turbine engine Kaveri will replace the GE-404 engines which are now being put in the LCA,” DRDO’s chief controller of research and development Prahlada told reporters here.
The Kaveri engine, a Rs.2,000 crore project, is being developed by one of the DRDO labs based in Bangalore, the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE).
Test runs of the first complete prototype Kaveri began in 1996.
However fed up by the delay in fully developing the engine, the defence ministry shelved its plans to build a fighter aircraft.
The Kaveri engine project got revived in 2006 following a joint venture formed between the DRDO and French company, Snecma, an engine-maker, to jointly develop it to fit in the LCA.
