Russia Helping India Complete Kaveri Engine Project: Rosoboronexport

An Indo-Russian project to modify India’s Kaveri Jet engine (presumably for the Sukhoi-30MKI fighter aircraft) is about to be completed.

“One of the most vivid illustrations (In Indo-Russian scientific partnership) is the KAVERI Indian aircraft engine. We have been involved in its development, modification and trials. The project is about to be over soon,” Alexander Mikheev, Director General of Rosoboronexport said in a statement today.

JSC Rosoboronexport pursues active cooperation with its foreign partners in the field of joint research and development works, the statement said adding  that at present, the majority of company’s joint R&D projects are with India and China. The projects focus on cooperation in the field of space, naval, air defense and army equipment, as well as other hi-tech projects.

“At present Rosoboronexport and Russia’s strategic partners are running over 200 R&D projects, whose number increases with every passing year. The growth dynamics continues to be positive. For instance, the number of such projects had not exceeded 100 until 2014”, - Alexander Mikheev, Director General of Rosoboronexport further said in the statement.

Defenseworld.net comment: The information that Russia is collaborating with India on the Kaveri engine is indeed interesting.

The Kaveri engine, developed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) was originally meant to power India’s home-made fighter jets but the project was put on the back-burner as it failed to meet deadlines.

Some media reports said that India is currently holding talks with the French company, Safran to explore the possibility to develop a 125kN thrust Class engine to replace current 123 kN Thrust Class AL-31FP turbofan engines developed by Salyut-HAL.

Russian companies had also offered India its 142 kN thrust class AL-41F1S turbofan engines used in the Su-35 to replace current AL-31F turbofan engines, various reports said but the response of the Indian side was not known.