On 10 May 1964, more than 54 years
ago, the first fighter aircraft to be designed, developed and manufactured in India was delivered to the Indian Air Force by Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL) at Bangalore. The aircraft was the twin-engined
fighter / bomber HF-24 (Marut or, Spirit
of the Tempest), billed as Asia’s first
supersonic fighter aircraft.
It apparently took
just 08 years from conception to
realisation, a herculean feat by the design team led by Dr. Kurt Tank (of World War
II, German Focke-Wulfe fame) and the production team of HAL. Glider
trials began within 22 months of
commencement of design with assembly of the first prototype (serial number BR 462) being completed in 1960-61. The prototype underwent ground
trials in March 1961 with first
flight taking place on 24 June 1961.
A total of almost 150
Marut aircraft were produced (including trainers) serving in No. 10 Squadron, No.31 Squadron & No.
220 Squadron of the IAF. To its
credit, the Marut held its own in the
air during the ’71 war with none
being lost to dog-fights, with one
pilot even getting the better of a Pakistani
F-86 Sabre.
It is said that if sanctions after the second round of
nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1998 led to delays in the LCA project, then the first round of
tests in 1974 also played their role
in affecting the future of the Marut. Ultimately,
the aircraft which virtually led to the birth of our indigenous aircraft
manufacturing industry never really attained its true potential with the last aircraft being retired
from active service in the 1990s.
The Marut airframe was apparently designed to fly
at Mach 2.0 but the lack of a
suitable engine put paid to any such ambitions eventually limiting it to a max
speed of 1,112 km/h at sea level or, Mach 0.91. It is believed that the
search for a suitable engine probably even drove us to offer the aircraft to Egypt in the mid 1960s for use as a test-bed for their engine development programme
(E-300 turbojet; a German-Egyptian collaboration for a Mach 2.0 capable engine) for the Egyptian HA-300 fighter jet! The
modified Marut, fitted with one Orpheus Mk 703 turbojet & one E-300 turbojet apparently flew more than
100 successful test flights in Egypt.
The Egyptian HA-300
supersonic aircraft development programme was subsequently cancelled in the
late 1960s with Soviet MiGs taking centre-stage. It is an uncanny parallel to the
way the Marut was also eventually
sidelined by the MiG-21 in India. One school of thought suggests
that the termination of the Egyptian HA-300 programme coupled with the E-300 turbojet programme also crippled
the Marut’s goal of reaching Mach 2.0 and dealt a virtual deathblow
to the nascent indigenous fighter aircraft industry from which it is still
trying to recover with the LCA.
With the eventual destiny of the Marut being laid at the intake of its engines (the Mk1 version of the Marut used two Bristol
Siddeley Orpheus Mk 703 turbojet engines
while the reheated Mk 703R powered the production version of
the aircraft), it might be worthwhile to study the basic details of the
aircraft/ engine and compare it with a couple of contemporary engines/ aircraft
being operated by the IAF to try and
possibly understand how we failed the Marut.
For this exercise, I have selected the indigenous Kaveri which was meant to power the LCA, the GE-F404 which is
actually installed on the LCA and the
Snecma M88-2 which powers the Rafale M (the maritime version). All technical data listed here have
been obtained from unclassified open sources.
|
Engine Thrust- Weight
Ratios
|
|||||
|
Engine
|
Weight (lb)
|
Dry Thrust (lbf)
|
Thrust with A/burners (lbf)
|
Dry T/W Ratio
|
A/burning T/W Ratio
|
|
Orpheus Mk 703
|
835
|
4,850
|
5,720
|
5.81
|
6.85
|
|
Kaveri GTX-35
|
2,724
|
11,687
|
18,210
|
4.29
|
6.68
|
|
GE-F404
|
2,282
|
12,100
|
20,200
|
5.30
|
8.85
|
|
Snecma M88-2
|
1,978
|
11,250
|
16,860
|
5.69
|
8.52
|
(all
approximate values)
|
Aircraft Thrust-
Weight Ratios
|
||||||
|
Aircraft
|
Dry Weight (lb)
|
Dry Thrust (lbf)
|
Max. Weight (lb)
|
Thrust With A/burners (lbf)
|
Dry T/W Ratio
|
A/burning T/W Ratio with Max. Wt.
|
|
Marut (with Mk 703
x2)
|
13,658
|
4,850 x 2
|
24,048
|
5,720 x 2
|
0.70
|
0.48
|
|
LCA (with Kaveri)
|
14,742
|
11,687
|
29,542
|
18,210
|
0.79
|
0.61
|
|
LCA (with GE-F404)
|
14,300
|
12,100
|
29,100
|
20,200
|
0.85
|
0.69
|
|
Rafale M (with
Snecma M88-2 x 2)
|
23,400
|
11,250 x 2
|
54,000
|
16,860 x 2
|
0.96
|
0.62
|
(all
approximate values)
|
Engine Dimensions
|
|||
|
Engine
|
Length (in/ cm)
|
Dia (in/ cm)
|
Weight (lb)
|
|
Orpheus Mk 703
|
75.45/ 191.6
|
32.4/ 82.3
|
835
|
|
Kaveri GTX-35
|
137.4/ 349
|
35.8/ 90.9
|
2,724
|
|
GE-F404
|
154/ 391
|
35/ 89
|
2,282
|
|
Snecma M88-2
|
139.3/ 353.8
|
27.4/ 69.6
|
1,978
|
(all
approximate values)
The Marut had
an all-metal airframe (length 15.87m,
height 3.6m, wingspan 9.0m) weighing in at 11,988 lb compared to the LCA’s
12,018 lb (length 13.2m, height 4.4m, wingspan 8.2m).
Now, I invite you to accompany me in a leap of
imagination. Suppose we were to take the Mach
2.0 airframe design of the Marut and
“re-engineer” it (keeping everything else constant) to accommodate two GE-F404
engines in place of the Orpheus Mk
703, we would get an engine thrust advantage of 14,500 lbf dry (12,100 x 2 –
4,850 x 2) and 28,960 lbf with afterburners (20,200 x 2 – 5,720 x 2) resulting in a theoretical aircraft afterburning thrust-weight ratio of 1.5 for the “re-engineered
Marut” {(20,200 x 2) / [24,048 – (835 x 2) + (2,282 x 2)]}! This of course
would not actually be the case since the “re-engineered
Marut” would be much heavier due to the need for additional fuel, weapons and electronics package.
However, even if we consider the the “re-engineered
Marut” to be as heavy as the Rafale M
(max. wt. 54,000 lb), it would still give us an aircraft afterburning
thrust-weight ratio of 0.75 compared
to 0.48 of the original Marut!
It would be irresponsible and downright foolish of me to
suggest that the old Marut can take
to the air after just slapping on a new set of engines. Nor am I saying that a
human who can run 100 metres in 10 seconds can therefore run a marathon in 01 hour 10 minutes & 19.5 seconds. Absolutely not! I am only
indicating the possibility of re-examining
the Marut’s designs and coming up
with a re-engineered twin-engined fighter
aircraft more powerful than the LCA. Since
the Marut airframe had been
classified as Mach 2.0 capable, maybe
it would just be possible for the aircraft to finally achieve its tryst with
destiny almost sixty years after its
birth. Bear in mind that the iconic MiG-21
had around 20 versions take to
the skies within the first twenty years of its birth!
As of now, all our indigenous fighter aircraft eggs are
in the single-engined LCA’s basket
while the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy once again scout the world
market for a single/ twin-engined fighter
aircraft. It would therefore probably be prudent to have work on an indigenous twin-engined fighter aircraft
progressing simultaneously along with the LCA.
If Lockheed Martin and Boeing of the US and MiG and Sukhoi design bureaus of Russia can evolve and develop to meet
the needs of their respective Air Forces, and indeed of a large part of the
world, there is no reason why India with
one of the largest air forces in the world as well as armed with one of the
largest shopping carts in the global arms market cannot think big and have a
healthy and competitive aircraft production industry operating on its soil.
Such ventures cost large amounts of capital infusion but have valuable
spin-offs.
The way ahead to study the possibilities of this idea
would be to leverage the government’s ‘strategic
partnership’ model with industry and throw down a challenge to the JVs formed by the Tata, Mahindra, Reliance, Adani etc. as well as HAL to come up with proposals to re-engineer the Marut to meet the Air Staff
Requirements (ASRs) of the IAF for
a twin-engined fighter aircraft. The
most acceptable proposal could then be given the go-ahead to develop the
aircraft with active support from the Ministry
of Defence much along the lines of the US
government’s approach towards supporting the development of military
aircraft. Our government scientific laboratories, like those of the DRDO, could be given the mandate to
support the indigenous privately owned military aircraft production centres in
this endeavour.
In the 1960s, it
didn’t suit the developed world to encourage our indigenous supersonic fighter aircraft programme by
giving us a suitable engine for the Marut.
It still doesn’t suit the foreign aircraft manufacturers who would rather
have us import their aircraft production
lines in India than encourage the
country to design & build its own. However, changed political realities
have led to the US allowing the
installation of General Electric F-404 engines
on the LCA!
The question is why
go back to the Marut? If we could
utilise the Marut’s proven high speed
airframe design which is already available with us to cater to our requirements
for a large number of fighter aircraft in the near future, we would not just be
revitalising the indigenous fighter aircraft design, development and production
industry but also encouraging the weapon, communication, IT & electronics
industry to expand and feed into the aviation industry. It could provide our
private sector with the jump-start it
probably needs to enter the military aviation industry.
And…it could possibly
also help prevent the concept of ‘Make in
India’ degenerating into ‘Assembled
in India’.
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