Tejas to get state-of-the-art engines from US

New Delhi: India has finalized an agreement for 99 GE 414 engines to power its indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. This is the first, and significant, engine contract for GE Aviation to power fighter jets for India and the LCA will be the first combat aircraft in the inventory of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy with engines from the US. Both services have US-made transport aircraft though and all the three US engine majors, GE, Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney have supplied power units for them.

DRDO Director General (and Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister) VK Saraswat told India Strategic (www.indiastrategic.in) in an interview that the agreement with GE was signed recently, and that he expected the aircraft to be a success for both the IAF and the Indian Navy. The IAF has used Fairchild Packets in the 1960s, has Lockheed Martin C-130Js now and is set to get Boeing C-17 Globemasters beginning this year.

The Navy used the Lockheed Super Constellations for maritime reconnaissance. They are all transporters. GE won the contract for its F414-GE-INS6 afterburner turbofan engine in September 2010 narrowly edging out a competing bid by the European Eurojet EJ 200.

It has taken nearly two years for the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the Defence Research and 
Development Organisation (DRDO), which had selected the engine, to work out details like how and how much of the engine will be produced in India. A production contract is now being worked out between GE Aviation and HAL, which will manufacture them, in this regard.