BY EDITOR AT 27 JULY, 2010, 1:34 AM
Note: Vinayak shetty is admin of www.lca-tejas.org had also has his own blog at Point blank
BY: Vinayak shetty
In a busy Hangar in Hal complex a lone Tejas Pv-1 in the corner of the Hanger waits for Integration with the Kaveri engine , mating should have taken place a decade ago but delays in kaveri engine by GTRE only delayed the whole event , this also shows how off track whole Kaveri engine Project really is .
PV-1 has been pulled out of the current rigorous Tejas Test program since it no longer has all the new avionics equipments and its subsystems , nor does it has weapons integrated to carry out weapons testing ,but it will not join the fate of TD-1 and TD-2 where both have been dismantled and usable parts already been removed from the aircraft and waits it last resting place neither in a museum or a IAF Base .
Efforts are on to integrate Kaveri engine to its airframe , PV-1 is the only aircraft which was designed keeping Kaveri engine in mind , but it flew with American Ge engine , it still needs a lot of rework on its fuel lines and also on plumping systems ,so does LRU in the aircraft, Tejas LSP aircrafts have gone lot of changes recently to match LSP , PV-1 will also require number of changes to its mission computer and software .
Sources close to
www.lca-tejas.org have told us that PV-1 up gradation and rework may delay the whole integration of Kaveri engine , HAL engineers are also working on possibility of integrating it with Tejas LSP-1 which is a newer airframe and has better equipment on-board then Pv-1 .
Which aircraft will take the honor will be decided soon and Kaveri engine will fly on board a Tejas Air frame by early 2011 or some time later in the year
