Getting the LCA airborne

By C. V. Gopalakrishnan

THE SUCCESSFUL maiden flight of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) should end the gloom which might have been felt over the very slow pace of progress of the supersonic fighter aircraft. However, the plane which became airborne is still a technology demonstrator and nothing has yet been said about its being inducted into the Indian Air Force before a decade from now as had been indicated earlier. The production of all the assemblies, sub-assemblies and components required for an LCA squadron should take that long.

An optimistic assessment of the inordinate delay in designing and developing the LCA is that as a jet fighter of the future its progress could not be hastened. The big reduction in the estimated cost of the aircraft which is very much low at $ 15 millions as against the $ 195 millions of the U.S. F-22 while that of the other fighters like EFA, Rafale, Mirage, Tornado and Jas-29 range from $ 25 millions to $ 70 millions could support the claims about the gain from the advances in technology going into the LCA. The weight of the LCA also would be far less than other fighter aircraft - not more than 10,000 kg for the first prototype and it is expected to come down to 7,000 kg for the subsequent prototypes.

Therefore, if and when such a promising LCA comes into being, it should interest prospective buyers apart from its becoming the flagship of the Indian Air Force. It was not clear what the Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, had in mind when he said that the cost would be higher if the LCA was going to be ``produced for our own use. Taking along other countries, the price will come down''. The anticipated involvement of the other countries could either be the seeking of their participation in production - for which there has already been an offer from Russia - or just the negotiation of sales of the plane to them. He had also said that the ``thrust'' would be South East Asia and South Africa. If Mr. Fernandes is just thinking of markets for the LCA, a successful outcome for such an effort would very much depend upon the aerial defence outlook of the countries he is considering; the plus point here being the much lower weight of the LCA, the price of which will also have to be kept low.

Such expectations will materialise only if the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), which will be making the LCA, lives up to them. The HAL has had enough experience for avoiding the kind of pitfalls which led to its earlier HF-24 project failing to get off the ground. Among the questions thrown up is whether India's technological competence is now higher than it was when it had taken up the HF-24 project for going ahead with the ambitious LCA design and development programme. In a discussion of these and other matters, Dr. S. R. Valluri, former Director, National Aeronautical Laboratories (NAL) and the first Director-General of the LCA programme, draws attention to how at the very first step the HF-24 project stumbled because of the non-sanctioning of funding of Rs. 5 crores for the development of the reheat version of the Orpheus 703 engine of Briston Siddeley of U.K. for achieving the design objectives of the HF-24 after the NATO countries expressed lack of interest in its development. The decision of the IAF to persist with the project by accepting a lower performing HF- 24 should have been another wrong step. It is to be hoped that the decision to go for the GE F 404 engine for initially powering the LCA before its replacement by the indigenously-made Kaveri engine had been taken after an exacting assessment of the U.S.-made engine and there will be no repetition of the earlier mistake with the HF-24 project.

The delay in going ahead with LCA project since it was mooted almost 15 years ago and the long waiting period of about ten years before the plane gets airborne should enable the design bureau of the HAL to achieve a perfection with its design and development if time alone were the major requirement. Achieving the best results would, however, hinge upon closing down the technology inputs and proceeding with the building of the plane within a timeframe during which further advances in technology would not take place to make the aircraft outmoded. A major requirement here is adequate funding for R&D for successful indigenisation of the LCA engine. A reason why the HF-24 project failed was due to the funding being a measly Rs.5 crore. If, according to reports, the LCA would cost Rs. 3,000 crores, there is no getting away from such a heavy funding with an estimated 10 per cent of it going into R&D. The funding may even turn out to be very modest in view of the escalations in costs since the HF 24 programme was taken up. Dr. Valluri has also drawn attention to the neglect which R&D had suffered as a cause for the failure of the HF 24 project.

The importance which the R&D set up in aircraft production programmes merits arises from the proposed aircraft being equipped with the engine which would give the required high level performance. Ensuring this with a substantial indigenous effort implies that the Kaveri engine should not merely match the GE F 404 but also go much further ahead. Would the HAL R&D bureaus be able to claim - apart from achieving - that much between now and 2010? The imperatives which this call for would be the Kaveri engine punching far greater power into the LCA than the GE 404, flying higher with a payload more than what the existing aircraft have and achieving greater penetration and strike capabilities. The scientists and the engineers will have to be backed to the hilt by the R&D bureaus for a relentless honing of the performance of the aircraft.

The progress of the LCA programme requires the IAF as the user to be fully involved in it at all stages. This seems to have been ensured by the IAF with its Long Term Re-Equipment Plan, says Dr. Valluri who believes that the LCA design and development made it possible for India to shake itself free from dependence on foreign-made aircraft. Foreign support should be restricted to what can be readily acquired or where foreign engineers or technicians could be commissioned for assistance to make what is needed more quickly without the Indians having to start from scratch. The LCA programmers would seem to have shown an awareness of this by negotiating contracts abroad for the fly-by- wire control systems and skins for the carbon fibre composite (CFC) wings of the LCA. The National Aeronautical Laboratories seem to have made considerable progress with the integration of these systems. This should give an idea of the content of indigenisation. It consists not in foregoing what is already available but in stepping up the capabilities wherever it is possible in the production process. The progress made here would inspire further advances in technology both within the country and abroad.

Among the other major requirements is the ensuring of a compatibility between the LCA airframe and the engine. Though this sounds very elementary and much too obvious to be mentioned, the fact is that a failure to achieve such compatibility led to the failure of the HF-24 project. The ``washing out'' of 20 per cent increase in the thrust of the Orpheus 703 reheat engine of the HF-24 aircraft resulting from the improper design at the aft end is mentioned by Dr. Valluri as one of the reasons for the failure of the HF 24 aircraft.

However, it should not be forgotten that the huge expenditure which the LCA project requires can be defended only by its being an inescapable requirement for the country's defence.

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