Air Force Chief VR Choudhary
– Photo: ANI
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Air Force Chief VR Choudhary has given a clear message to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) regarding the delay in the delivery of Light Combat Aircraft LCA Tejas fighter jet. The Air Chief Marshal said that more and more production lines should be built for manufacturing LCA under Public Private Partnership. So that the delay in delivery of Tejas can be dealt with. At the same time, American company GE Aerospace, which supplies engines for Tejas, will start delivering F404 engines to HAL from November, after which the production of Tejas is expected to accelerate.
Addressing a press conference on the completion of the second phase of the Air Force’s multinational air exercise Tarang Shakti in Jodhpur, Air Chief Marshal VR Choudhary said that more and more production lines should be built under the public private partnership model to overcome the delay in the supply of Tejas fighter jets. He said that HAL should play an important role in increasing production and finding solutions to deliver aircraft on time. He said that the performance of LCA in the Tarang Shakti exercise has been excellent. But the important question is to look at the production along with our needs. After our current order of 83 LCA MK-1A, there is an order for 97 more Tejas, whose delivery will take a long time.
Sources in the Ministry of Defense say that the delivery of F-404 engines from GE Aerospace is expected to start from next month, GE has said that it will deliver two engines every month till the order of 99 engines is completed. Sources say that the issue of delay in delivery of engines was raised during Rajnath Singh’s visit to the US last month. After which GE has assured to supply soon. HAL signed a contract of US $ 716 million with GE for these engines in August 2021. The Indian Air Force had initially ordered 83 Tejas MK-1A fighter jets, worth Rs 48,000 crore. But the government had also ordered 97 additional Tejas after that. But the delivery of the engines is getting delayed by about 10 months.
The Indian Air Force is planning to order about 120 LCA Mk-2 fighter jets, which will also be manufactured by HAL. Although HAL claims that they can now make 24 Tejas in a year, the Air Force does not trust their claim. Earlier, HAL was supposed to deliver the Tejas Mk-1A by March 31, 2024. But now the first aircraft is expected to be delivered only by December. At the same time, along with the delay of about 10 months in the delivery of the engine, the certification of many systems installed in Tejas is also getting delayed.
However, not only Tejas, the Indian Air Force also wants to include the fifth generation fighter jet Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). But the production of AMCA is expected to start only by 2035. At the same time, the prototype of AMCA will come only by 2028-29. At the same time, after the approval of the prototype of the AMCA project, it will be able to join the Indian Air Force only by 2034-35.