The story started in the 1930s. The work was on developing the first turbine engine. That will fly the planes of the future. The theory was established, but it couldn’t be translated into reality because the technology was not available. Especially the metal. That could withstand the heat and stress.
Nonetheless, with the war on the horizon, the race for a superior engine to fly fighter aircraft was on. The English had a slight advantage over the Germans. But most of the major development was done by the US.
In the 1960s, India got interested in this technology and started the development of its very own engine, called the Kaveri engine.
The base was right here in Bangalore.
In the scientific community, this was called ‘lucky engine. For whoever got attached to it, they got their Ph.D. easily and without any fuss. Because no one knew what the hell was happening. This engine gave about 500 people their doctoral degrees. But no real progress was made.
2017. Finally, good news arrives. They announce that the engine is ready. For testing, that is. But India doesn’t have the required test facilities. Enter good friend Russia. They took the engine to their test facility in Siberia and tested it. It passed all parameters except one.
It was too heavy to be mounted on any aircraft. It just has to lose weight. That means more research. And maybe a new metal. Or alloy. Or massive miniaturization of technology.
So we are back to square one.
We will probably be ready in the next fifty years.
#kaveriengine
#indianresearch
#chalorussia
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