What's so wrong with the Kaveri Engine? Why can we make an aero engine despite making rocket engines?

According to what I read, the Kaveri engine had a tendency to throw turbine blades, which is unfortunate if you are in a cockpit next to the engine and/or depending on it to keep you in the air. It also failed the high altitude tests and was too heavy for the Tejas aircraft. It also became a political issue due to the costs associated with developing the engine. Modern aircraft engines must meet extreme demands for performance.

Liquid fueled rocket engines are comparatively simple. They pump the fuel and oxidant into the combustion chamber, ignite the fuel and then exhaust it through a nozzle.

Kaveri Engine

GTRE is at it, for the last 4 decades or more, when it was started by (the then) Wg.Cmdr. Roy Chaudhary (who started it in a BRD of Kanpur).

First, GTRE developed a reheat for HF 24 'Marut' fighter-bomber (aircraft developed by the German designer Pro.Kurt Tank at its Bengaluru design bureau), underpowered with Orpheus 70100 series engine (that was the only engine that they could get, as nobody gives an aero-engine for love or money anywhere in the world & marrying a Russian engine to its airframe will take a decade at least). The aircraft was the finest aerodynamic design at that time (airframe copied in the Yugoslav-Romanian 'Jastreb' too). In 1965 War this was the casue for its unedrpwrformance (mainly in the dog-fight taht an Interceptor is expected to perform) in which the 'Gnat' won all honour hands down. Gnat's success set off a rethingh in the redesign for a LWF that finally resulted in F16, whose spiritual father was Gnat. The reheat version was flight tested by Wg.Cmdr. Suranjan Das (you can see his name for the street connecting Engine factory & Aircraft factory, that takes off to CV Raman nagar) in early seventies. He was the best known Test Pilot ever, in India (they used to joke that he could fly any aircraft even without an engine!). he took off and plummeted in a well-watered rice-paddy a kilometer away. After take off, probably he put on the 'reheat' that failed. They were searching for some flesh (his) so that he could be given a decent burial (even under a white sheet spread on a stretcher). It put an end to reheat version & GTRE too. GTRE was forgotten (put in a dog- house with a succession of directors taking over). A "RR" (UK) designer was giving a highly technical talk, summed up (expressed) that to design an aero-engine one needs to know 'two' things: 1) Thermodynamics & 2) Metallurgy. I think India produced world class experts in Thermodynamics but none who translated to technology. In Metallurgy (let's face it) India is very backward except islands of expertise like AEC (Prof. Placid Rodrigues, an authority in Nuclear metallurgy as example). India might be great in Science but last in technology (& you need brains to distinguish between the two). What is needed is better engineers as we have a surfeit of Scientists. Whats needed is an ambiance of this high technology vendors & suppliers instead of Labs. At least some who leave the thousands of Indian engineering colleges should exert to develop Technologies in the field to avert these high-end Labs from sourcing everything from USA. And they need to be assured of their market. They need to do genuine reverse engineering (like in Pharmaceutical Industry). It is not possible when the Armed Forces are indifferent to this vital National need & place orders (they get foreign jaunts & much more) on foreign weapon systems. It results in an indigenous effort to be forever stymied that never reaches 'maturity' (even daughters take at least 12 years to mature & aren't delivered as 'matured' from mother's womb). This nurturing is lacking. An exception is LCA under Kota Harinarayana; was a laudable effort in which everything was sourced from indigenous sources (except the General Dynamics '404' engine, now LCA mainstay). It needs to be encouraged still further.

GTRE has young talent (I know) who are really good if only they get their senior (old-fashioned) Scientists off their back & forget about promotions. I wonder whether they find solutions through CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). My nephew did his Post graduation dissertation in CFD . I told him to join Defence R & D (GTRE) but he chose a life in Computers (the field that is a graveyard for all engineering talent) & went to California.

Yet I feel Kaveri can come good. Take RC Sharda who is cooling his heels after retirement from AirHQ to give direction (in my view).