If reports are to be believed, the defence procurement board (DPB) of the defence ministry recommended the procurement of 60 Ghatak unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) for the armed forces.
Evolved from an earlier concept called AURA (Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft), Ghatak, being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is designed to carry out deep-strike missions inside heavily defended enemy airspace.
The unmanned aircraft, being developed for both deep strike and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) operations, is also suitable for SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defences) and DEAD (Destruction of Enemy Air Defences) missions.
A report in Business Standard said the move by the DPB comes as a boost to the country's flying-wing combat drone programme. This also comes as a boost to India's indigenous Kaveri jet engine programme as the Ghatak UCAV programme reportedly plans to use a derivative of the Kaveri engine in a dry configuration.
'Dry' engine refers to a jet engine that operates without an afterburner.
The Kaveri engine programme,developed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) under the DRDO, was originally meant to power the LCA Tejas. As the engine failed to meet the aircraft’s thrust and reliability requirements, it has been repurposed for other uses, including powering UCAVs.
Unlike the LCA’s afterburning engine, which produces 85 kilonewtons of thrust, the unmanned aerial vehicle is designed to operate at subsonic speeds and therefore does not require an afterburner.
The UCAV aims to achieve speeds of Mach 0.9, fly at altitudes of up to 13,000m and have a two-hour endurance.
GTRE director S.V. Ramana Murthy told THE WEEK's Sanjib Kr Baruah in September 2025 that the afterburner not being required, among other capabilities, gave the UCAV the stealth dimension. “That is one of the fundamental differences with the fighter aircraft engine,” he said. “That is why we call it a derivative engine or a dry engine.”
With the Ghatak UCAV now recommended for procurement, the Kaveri engine may finally get its chance to fly.
