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Lifting of US curbs to benefit LCA project

George Iype in New Delhi

Though India does not see the lifting of sanctions by the United States as an earth-shaking development, experts, however, said the Bush administration's decision would greatly help and boost key defence projects that ran into delays and problems due to sanctions.

One project that would immensely benefit is the ambitious Light Combat Aircraft, the indigenous multi-role fighter being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

DRDO officials said that problems of procurement of integrated command and guidance systems, radars, military spares, high-end computers and routers and engines have been partially nagging the defence establishment in the country ever since sanctions were imposed in 1998.

"We are yet to get the finer details of waiving of sanctions on India. But it will certainly help our defence projects. The first benefactor is going to be the LCA," a senior DRDO official told rediff.com.

The multi-role fighter aircraft meant to replace the aging MiG-21 has been DRDO's dream project for the last 18 years.

The most technologically complex challenge that DRDO ever undertook, the delay in shaping in developing the indigenous LCA has been hurting the Indian Air Force badly, denting the defence agency's image.

In a bid to force India to put the nuclear genie back into the bottle, the US pulled out of the LCA soon after the nuclear tests in May 1998.

Consequently, just one week after the nuclear tests, many Indian scientists working on different fields linked to the LCA at aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in Binghamton, New York, had to pack their bags for India because of sanctions.

The Indian engineers were working in the US to validate software for onboard computers, which would ultimately fly the aircraft.

Scientists said the US sanctions denied key components like hydraulic actuators and ring laser gyros to make inertial navigation systems.

"For instance, the hydraulic actuators were meant to navigate the aircraft, gain altitude and determine the trajectory of the LCA. So when we were denied these critical components, the LCA project suffered much," a senior DRDO scientist said.

Lockheed Martin then also refused to give the DRDO the flight control computer, which was in the US for testing, when sanctions were announced.

Another major hurdle that DRDO faced after the sanctions was on the LCA's engine.

As per its agreement with the US, India was allowed to purchase frontline 404 engines from General Electric.

In fact, DRDO imported 11 such engines and fitted them on to the early versions of the aircraft, pending the development of the indigenous Kaveri engine being developed by Gas Turbine Research Establishment, Bangalore.

But after the nuclear tests, GE withdrew its technical support personnel from India and DRDO was forced to depend only on Kaveri.

For the past three years, the Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeraunatics Limited has been trying hard to fit Kaveri engines into LCA; but it has not yet been successful due to problems of low pressure and temperature of the engine at high altitudes.

Now that the sanctions have been waved, DRDO expects that it can easily resume the import of GE 404 engines from the US.

"The LCA project will be accelerated because of the lifting of the sanctions. Supply of GE 404 engines means that the LCA can take off to the air sooner than expected," said Dr K Santhanam, chief of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.

Now that sanctions have been lifted, DRDO expects to complete the LCA project before the scheduled time-frame of year 2004.

"One of the main reasons for the LCA delay was that technological sanctions from the US hit us badly. Had it not been for the nuclear blasts, our deadline to test fly the aircraft would have been successful in December 1998," said a DRDO official.

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