India Receives Second GE404 Engine For Tejas Mark 1A, 12 More To Come

The much-awaited General Electric's F404 engine, which will power the multi-role Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mark 1A, has arrived in India today. The second engine was received by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the state-run firm that has built the fighter jet. 

Tejas Mark 1A is an upgraded version of the Tejas Mark 1, which is serving in two squadrons of the Indian Air Force - No. 45, the Flying Daggers and No. 18, the Flying Bullets. HAL is expected to receive 12 GE-404 engines by the end of this financial year, officials said.

The Indian Air Force has placed orders for 83 LCA Mark 1A fighter jets, and a proposal to buy 97 more of these planes is at an advanced stage after the Defence Ministry's clearance, officials added. However, it is important to note that the G3 F404-IN20 engines for the LCA Mk1 programme are running almost two years behind schedule in delivering the engines, which has impacted the induction of the fighter jets in the Indian Air Force, an issue even flagged by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh.

The Indian Air Force will retire the last serving mighty MiG-21s from the force by September this year. Only two squadrons of the Air Force, both located at the Nal Air Base in Rajasthan, will get the Tejas Mk1A fighter jet after the MiG-21s are phased out of service. With the phasing out of MiG-21s, the Indian Air Force's squadron strength will drop to 29, the lowest ever. The sanctioned squadron strength is 42. Each squadron has around 18 fighter jets.

Read more: Saga Of Tejas - Fighter Jet That Will Replace The Mighty MiG-21

Tejas Mk1A Goes Airborne

On March 28 last year, Group Captain KK Venugopal (Retired), a test pilot, took the Tejas Mk1A to the skies and was airborne for 15 minutes. The sortie was the first successful flight of the MK1A version of the fighter jet.

Group Captain Sunit Krishna, a test pilot of the LCA Tejas Mk1, spoke to NDTV India and said, "With time, the technology has to be improved and have to be integrated. The Indian Air Force wanted new systems to be integrated into the Tejas so that it could be in service for the next three decades."

"The aircraft might look similar from the outside, but new electronics, processors, display systems, and the hardware of fly-by-wire systems have been integrated...To list out, it has new AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar, air-to-ground, air-to-air modes and self-protection jammers, and the mission computer in MK1A is new and indigenous. The aircraft is future-ready," Group Captain Krishna said.

The design of an aircraft poses limitations to integrating new systems. The HAL has incorporated the latest technology with slight modifications in the design to give a newer aircraft.

The new variant will have almost 50 per cent more indigenous content than its predecessor. The MK1A version will have 40 more improvements than the previous one. The Tejas Mk1A will have the advanced Israel EL/M-2025 AESA Radar. It will soon be replaced by the Uttam AESA Radar, indigenously developed by Bharat Electronics Limited and HAL.

The Uttam Radar can track multiple targets and reportedly has a range of more than 200 km to give the aircraft a 360-degree scanned view of its surroundings. It will be used in the later variants like Tejas Mk2 and the Twin Engine Deck-Based Fighters (TEDBF).

The HAL has maintained a commonality between the Mk1 and Mk1A variants. The new version will have enhanced situational awareness with a slightly bigger canopy and changes in the jet aerodynamics to improve its manoeuvrability.

Mk1A will have around nine hard points on its underbelly to carry various types of weaponry like the Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles, Air-to-Air/Ground missiles, and Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air missiles (ASRAAM). External self-protection jammer pods will allow the aircraft to engage in electronic warfare.

An indigenously developed digital fly-by-wire flight control computer was integrated into the Tejas jet. Fly-by-wire systems in aircraft replace mechanical flight controls with an electronic interface.