Much of our ‘X’ discussion on Jet engine tech revolves around a subconscious assumption that it is a single complex technology to crack. The truth is it is the discovery & mastering of 100s of technologies across solid & fluid physics, design, materials, manufacturing, electronics, control systems.

It is not I cracked 4 out of 5 tech so hey why not be able to get 4/5th of efficiency of a western jet engine. Need to have considerable mastery over all of them and, critically, good understanding of the interplay of all these technologies together in adverse environments.

So our talk of just manufacturing technologies and materials like Single Crystal Blade Technology, isothermal forging, laser drilling etc is simplistic and doesn’t capture the complexity of the problem at hand that pervades across design and physics involved.

Each of the part mentioned above and the 1000s of sorts that’s not been tagged in the picture above, undergo dozens of manufacturing steps individually at very high precision before being able to be assembled together. Making a list of dozen key buzzword mfg technologies misses

the additional manufacturing steps to be done along with getting the design and physics right for the specific application we are looking for. This means multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of these domains for years before well guarded, tribal knowledge.

So next time someone comes up with “oh we have SCB tech developed”, “we have that mfg tech already proven in lab” calm down. There’s a lot more stuff beyond these marquee terms to be done.