Podcast: Indian Air Force's Jet Engine Quagmire

In this podcast, Armchair Perspectives explores how a lack of domestically-produced fighter jet engines is significantly delaying the Indian Force’s modernisation drive to replace its vintage aircraft with cutting-edge fighter jets.

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The Indian Air Force presently operates a fleet of over 260 Su-30MKI fighters, about 140 old ground attack Jaguars, and an assortment of the French Rafale and Mirage, Russian Mig-29, and domestically-built Tejas Mk1 fighter jets, totalling close to 600 fighter aircraft.

The force is already undergoing a major transformation, inducting hundreds of Tejas Mk 1A jets to replace its 1980s era fighters, modernising its fleet with 114 advanced Rafale jets, and setting its sights on a fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft.

However, the lack of domestically produced jet engines could seriously derail the force's fast-paced modernisation push.

In this podcast, Armchair Perspectives explores India's struggles to produce jet engines powerful enough to run modern fighter aircraft, and how the government is building partnerships with major overseas companies to slowly arm the domestic industry with technologies needed to built jet engines of the future.

Here's the full transcript of this Armchair Perspectives podcast:

Hello and welcome to The Armchair Perspectives Podcast, your go to podcast for the latest commentaries and perspectives on military, societal and geopolitical developments in India and around the globe.

I am Jayant Chakravarti, your host for today.

I would say this podcast is as timely as it is timeless. Because I am going to talk about a topic that meanders on like a dormant volcano waiting endlessly for the perfect moment when everything falls in place for it to turn into a roaring Armageddon.

The dormant volcano is the Indian Air Force, and the perfect future is what it visualises itself to become in about 20 years from now - a powerful, destructive force wielding the weapons of the future and establishing new rules of engagement in its spheres of influence.

For now, the Air Force is a work in progress, biding its time to allow planned transformations to take shape.

It presently operates a fleet of over 260 Su-30MKI fighters, about 140 old ground attack Jaguars, and an assortment of the French Rafale and Mirage, Russian Mig-29, and domestically-built Tejas Mk1 fighter jets, totalling close to 600 fighter aircraft.

The Indian Air Force also operates large fleets of transport aircraft, AWACS jets, transport and attack helicopters, ground-based surface to air missile systems, a commando force, an assortment of radars and a multitude of unmanned aerial vehicles and drone systems.

As you can see, there’s a lot to cover when one starts talking about the Air Force’s bench strength, its capabilities, objectives and modernisation efforts. We won’t get into that because a 6 hour long podcast isn’t really what anyone would have time for.

What we intend to cover, specifically, is how the Air Force plans to modernise its fighter fleet and why a domestically-built jet engine, or a lack of it, could derail its efforts in the long run.

The reason why I used the word derail is because none of the fighter jets in the IAF fleet run on domestically built engines, even though many of them have been manufactured in India under licence from overseas companies.

Even the two squadrons of the indigenous Tejas Mk1 jets run on GE Aviation’s F404 jet engines. The 180 Tejas Mk1A aircraft under production will also feature the same engines.

This has left defence planners with the sole option to use domestic jet engines in future 5th generation fighter jets, like the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, which is under development.

For a country like India which imports billions of dollars of defence systems every year, one may ask why can’t the IAF simply import more jet engines to power its fighter jets in the future?

There are a couple of issues here. The first is that jet engines represent the pinnacle of proprietary military technology, and no manufacturer would hand over the technology or the know-how to let India manufacture engines domestically.

For the same reason, jet engines are incredibly expensive. Buying a set of jet engines with sufficient power could cost billions of dollars, and considering that jet engines have a limited shelf life, lifecycle costs of the aircraft spiral beyond control as the force need to procure hundreds of new engines every decade to replace existing ones.

This leads to a significant technological dependence on the side of the buyer. If you cannot make an engine, you cannot customise it for different aircraft, you cannot use its design philosophy to develop more powerful engines, and you are forever dependent on the supplier for the upkeep of your engines, and that costs an incredible amount of money.

India is presently experiencing in first hand the effects of its dependency on foreign suppliers on its ability to commission new fighter jets. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited commissioned GE Aviation in 2021 to supply 99 F404-GE-IN20 jet engines, but by 2026, only six engines were delivered because of supply chain issues.

The delay in engine supplies has left the HAL warehouse with dozens of fighter jet shells awaiting engine integration. This has significantly delayed the induction of Tejas jets at a time the IAF is struggling to shore up the number of fighter jet squadrons to meet emerging threats from Pakistan and China.

India has had a domestic jet engine development programme for decades, but the Kaveri engine produced by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment hasn’t delivered the kind of peak power that modern fighter jets must have. There are plans to use the engine to power combat UAVs instead.

For the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, which is planned to be the country’s first fifth generation fighter, the government is trying to reduce its dependence on foreign suppliers by making engine manufacturers like France’s Safran to agree to a transfer of technology pact with domestic companies.

We can say the government really succeeded in its efforts. In 2025, Safran signed an agreement with the Defence Research and Development Organisation to co-develop a clean-sheet jet engine capable of delivering between 120 to 140 kilo newtons of thrust, sufficient to power heavy fighter jets carrying an assortment of heavy air to air and air to ground missiles.

Safran has reportedly agreed to a full transfer of technology of all components and design philosophies of the new jet engine, which means India will have full intellectual property rights.

This will give the DRDO the flexibility to change the jet’s configuration and to customise it for future fifth generation aircraft for the Indian Navy as well.

The deal sounds great for everyone involved, but will require a major technological leap and close bonds between the companies as such a powerful fighter jet engine hasn’t been developed before. It may take many, many years to roll out a prototype, and success cannot be guaranteed.

Which is why the British aerospace company Rolls Royce has also decided to throw its hat into the ring, realising that the Indian Air Force’s fifth generation fighter aircraft plans entail the induction of hundreds of aircraft featuring cutting-edge technologies.

Rolls Royce has submitted its proposal to the Indian government, offering complete local production and total technology transfer of a new jet engine whose prototype can be readied in just a couple of years and made available for flight tests by 2034.

Considering that the deal with Safran may or may not turn out to be a success, the government is seriously studying Rolls Royce’s proposal as the offer meets its requirements of 100% local production and proprietary rights over the technology.

Considering how delays in jet engine deliveries by GE Aviation has delayed the induction of Tejas jets by several years, any dependency on a foreign company for the development or production of fighter jet engines carries an element of risk, but it is a risk that India has to take to sure the IAF will continue to dominate the skies in the future.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Armchair Perspectives Podcast.

Before you go, do check out another brand new episode where we discussed how India is also working towards developing its own turbine engines for the Navy’s destroyers, frigates and other ships. The podcast is especially relevant as Ukraine’s main facility that supplies engines for Indian Naval ships was damaged by the Russian army, pushing back engine deliveries and maintenance by years. We look at how the Indian Navy is trying to find ways around the disruption to reduce its reliance on overseas suppliers.

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Armchair Perspectives Podcast. See you next time.

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