India receives second GE F-404 engine to power Tejas LCA Mk-1A

New Delhi: India has received the second F-404 engine from General Electric to power Tejas LCA Mk-1A, raising hopes for the Indian Air Force to have fully armed versions of the home-grown combat jets in the inventory in near future.

The engine reached Bengaluru on Monday and was shifted to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited facility for integration, defence sources told DH.

This comes more than three months after the US major supplied the first engine in the last week of March. The company has promised supply of 12 engines this year.

HAL has readied six Tejas LCA-Mk1A and two trainers, fitted with lower-grade engines, which will be replaced by the F-404. Also three more are in the pipeline.

The Defence Ministry in 2021 signed an over Rs 45,000 crore deal with the HAL to supply 83 home grown fully-armed fighter jets to the IAF. A proposal to buy 97 more aircraft was in an advanced stage of negotiations between the ministry, IAF and HAL.

The delivery of the first batch of Tejas LCA Mk-1A aircraft has been delayed because of the US major’s inability to supply the engines in time.

Sources said HAL’s new Tejas LCA assembly line at Nashik was likely to roll out the first aircraft by August. Once the engine supply becomes regular, the Indian aviation firm will produce the indigenous fighter jets using three assembly lines.

Commercial negotiations are also going on with GE for the supply of F-414 engines that will power the next generation aircraft like Tejas LCA-Mk-2, fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft and Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter aircraft for the Indian Navy.

Meanwhile, L&T has become the first private company to have successfully produced the first pair of Tejas LCA wings which, according to sources. will be handed over to HAL this week. L&T is one of the companies with which HAL has a tie-up for producing critical parts of the aircraft in order to accelerate the production of the home grown fighters.