US-India defence cooperation: Fighter jet engines to ship repairs

The defence cooperation highlight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to the US last week was the agreement between US firm General Electric (GE) and India’s aerospace giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to manufacture the GE F414 jet engines in India.

Besides powering HAL’s Tejas Mark 2 (Mk2) fighter, the F414 could also be chosen to power other combat aircraft being acquired by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy.

HAL-GE’s India plant could eventually produce close to a 1,000 F414 engines. Besides 126 Tejas Mk2 fighters, the IAF could choose these engines for 114 twin-engine, multi-role