GE gives 4th engine, was to deliver 30 by now

US engine manufacturer General Electric on Wednesday announced the delivery of its fourth engine for the Indian Air Force’s under-production Tejas Mark 1-A jets even though the company, as per its contractual commitment, should have by now supplied around 30 engines.

The IAF, which retired its decades’ old MiG-21 jets on September 26, has been facing a critical shortage of fighter aircraft.

The Tejas Mark 1-A jets are being manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the public enterprise is learnt to have readied around a dozen aircraft at its facility. The deliveries to the IAF, however, are stuck due to the non-supply of GE’s F404 engines. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) signed a Rs 48,000-crore contract with HAL in January 2021 for 83 Tejas Mark 1-A planes. The deliveries were to start in March 2024 while the F404 engines should have started coming in at least a year in advance, said officials.

HAL had inked a $716-million contract with GE for 99 F404 engines. The supplies were to start in April 2023 at the rate of 16 engines a year. After the delays, GE has promised to deliver 12 engines this year and 20 per year thereafter.

Despite the delays, the MoD last week signed a Rs 62,370-crore contract with HAL for procurement of an additional 97 Tejas Mark-1A jets. The MoD holds a majority stake in HAL, which is a listed company.

The Air Force currently has 31 squadrons (each having up to 18 planes) of fighter jets against the sanctioned 42 to counter a potential two-front challenge from Pakistan and China. With the phasing out of MiG-21, the strength has gone down to 29 squadrons.

The IAF’s fleet of Jaguar, MiG-29 and Mirage 2000, all inducted in phases in the 1980s, is scheduled to retire in batches after 2029-30. These four types of jets are about 250 in number and are operating on an extended life cycle. As per projections, India needs to manufacture around 500 jets for the IAF over the next two decades.

The Tejas programme has been initiated to help the IAF make up for the phased out MiG-21, with the Air Force already having inducted 40 Tejas Mark1 planes.