US to help India design jet engines

Washington has agreed to assist Delhi in sharing, designing and developing jet engines for aircraft—a critical technology that is exclusively owned by a handful of countries—in what is being considered a big step forward in Indo-US defence collaboration.

The assistance comes within months of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) winding up a Russia-backed project to develop Kaveri jet engines after losing more than Rs 2,000 crore and almost three decades.

New Delhi and Washington negotiated the text of the bilateral Defence Framework Agreement for the next 10 years as the existing framework signed in 2005 by then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld expired in 2014. The new pact, however, is yet to be signed.

“We have decided to take our growing defence cooperation to a new level. We have agreed, in principle, to pursue co-development and co-production of specific advanced defence projects. These will help upgrade our domestic defence industry, and expand the manufacturing sector in India,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the joint press conference with US President Barack Obama here on Sunday.

The big takeaway is the collaboration on jet engines, to be used in home-grown aircraft. “India and the US have agreed to explore development of jet engine in the country. It would be broader than the Kaveri programme,” said S Jaishankar, Indian Ambassador to the US.

Originally meant for use in indigenous light combat aircraft, the Kaveri jet engine was being developed with support from Russia. But the engine developed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment in Bengaluru could fly only for 73 hours on the IL-76 Flying Test Bed (FTB) in Russia.

Because of the delay, DRDO picked up the US-made GE 404 engine for the Tejas Mk-1 and GE 414 for the Tejas Mk-II aircraft.