In the Safran HAL Aircraft Engines factory, a joint venture between Safran Aircraft Engines (SAE) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), at the Bangalore Aerospace Park, India, July 8, 2022. MANJUNATH KIRAN / AFP There are three on the runway take-off, for a contract whose scope is as geopolitical as it is industrial. The French Safran, the American GE Aerospace and the British Rolls-Royce are competing for a crucial partnership with India for the design, development and local manufacturing of a powerful fighter jet engine. Developing such a reactor requires several decades of expertise (materials, reactor thrust-aircraft weight ratio, etc.) that only the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and, now, China have. Despite heavy public and private investments, research and development efforts and prototype testing deployed since the early 1990s, India failed in the development of its Kaveri model, thwarting the desire to ” self-sufficiency” of its Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. However, the stakes are considerable for the subcontinent: co-developing the engine powering its fifth generation aircraft, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, which the Air Force wants to put into service in the middle of the 2030s. Time press, especially since China’s big neighbor is more than ten years ahead, as proven by the first flight demonstration, in mid-November, of its J-35 stealth combat aircraft. You have 80.84% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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