NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force (IAF) expects to induct its first Tejas Mk-1A fighter within a month or two, with only two or three technical points left to be proven before the jets are taken on charge, IAF Vice Chief Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit said Tuesday. It is the latest in a string of revised timelines for a fighter that was contractually due to start rolling out in early 2024.
"Initially, the delay was on the engine side, we could not get enough engines. Now we have received the engines and have installed them on the aircraft. We are currently conducting proper and thorough testing before the aircraft is officially inducted," Air Marshal Dixit said in the capital, while briefing the media on the upcoming multilateral exercise Tarang Shakti.
"There are only two or three technical points left to be proven and I think within a month or two, we should be able to overcome those technical issues. Thereafter, the road will be clear," he added.
Top officials in the defence establishment told TNIE that what is holding up the jets now is an integration problem and that the IAF is not weighing any concessions. The aircraft will be accepted only when every air staff requirement is met, they said, ruling out an early handover in a lower configuration to be upgraded later. The new HAL CMD Ravi Kota has also gone on record recently and confirmed that the state-run DPSU is not asking for any relaxation.
At issue is the integration and synchronisation of the Israeli AESA radar with the aircraft's electronic warfare (EW) suite and other onboard mission systems, all of which form part of the mandatory operational requirements for the Mk-1A configuration. As reported earlier, the exercise is about ensuring that the radar, the electronic warfare suite and the weapons architecture talk to one another seamlessly through the mission computer network, with some of those parameters still undergoing refinement and validation.
Meanwhile, HAL has confirmed that it has received ten production-standard F404-IN20 turbofans from GE Aerospace, against a contracted requirement of 16 a year, with more consignments expected before the end of the year. Thirty airframes, have been built, flown and tested by the defence PSU.
The wait comes as the IAF is down to its lowest 29 fighter squadrons against an authorised 42.5, with nothing inducted to replace the MiG-21s retired in September last year. The Jaguars, MiG-29s and Mirage-2000s, all of 1980s vintage, will also begin retiring in batches from the end of this decade.
The Rs 48,000 crore contract for 83 Mk-1As, comprising 73 fighters and 10 trainers, was signed in February 2021, with deliveries to be completed by 2028-29. A follow-on order for 97 jets, 68 fighters and 29 trainers, worth Rs 62,370 crore, has taken the order book to 180 aircraft.
At a rated capacity of 24 aircraft a year across its three production lines, including the new one at Nashik, the full 180-jet MK1A fleet will not be in IAF hands before 2033, close to a decade after the first jet fell due.
