First made-in-India GE engine to be rolled out in three years

Ajay Banerjee

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New Delhi, June 23

The first made-in-India General Electric (GE) engine, the GE-F414, will be rolled out within three years, while the jet engine deal signed between GE and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) yesterday will see 80 per cent technology transfer by value.

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The US company will transfer to HAL critical and restricted technologies, some of which are among the most elusive and only the US, the UK, France and Russia have these.

“India will be getting the technology that has never been transferred to any country,” said a top functionary in the defence establishment.

The GE-F414 engines are compatible with the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas Mark-2, the forthcoming twin-engine deck-based fighter jet of the Navy and the initial lot of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). For the later version of the AMCA, the GE has submitted a separate proposal of co-developing and co-manufacturing higher-powered engine having 110 Kilo Newton thrust.

The F414 engine has a thrust of 95 Kn. The GE had yesterday announced a partnership with HAL. “The deal is done and dusted, the commercial part will be done soon. We are ready to sign the contract,” sources said. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had, two weeks ago, given the permission to test the prototype of Tejas Mark-2. The GE has already supplied eight engines for the testing process.

The GE and the MoD had, in 2012, agreed to produce F414 engine in India, with 58 per cent local content. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had been working on the project closely on signing the agreement with the US. Now, the local content and technology transfer will be augmented to 80 per cent

The MoD will be indexing the costing from the 2012 agreement, added to it will be the cost of inflation and technology transfer.

The engine will ramp up the indigenous  content of the Tejas series of jets. “ The first lot of 40 Tejas Mark 1 have 54 percent local content, the next lot of 83 Tejas Mark 1A — to be made from February next year — will have 62 percent local content. With the GE-F414 engine being made in  India the indigenous content of the Tejas Mark 2 would be excess of 75 percent”, said the source.

KEY RESTRICTED TECHNOLOGIES

CMC (Ceramic matrix composites)

Laser drilling technology for combustor

Special coatings against corrosion and erosion

Welding for fan and after burner

PMC (Polymer matrix composites)

Machining and coating for single crystal for turbine blades

Machining and coating of hot end parts

Blisk machining

Machining of powder metallurgy discs

Machining of thin-walled Titanium casing