India's Mass Order of F404-IN20 Engines for Tejas Mk1A Surprised GE, Leaving It Scrambling to Catch Up & Delays

India's unexpected mass order of Tejas Mk1A in 2021 may be the reason behind GE's inability to meet engine delivery timelines. This unexpected demand necessitated the delivery of almost 99 more F404-IN20 engines, a variant specifically designed for the Tejas Mk1 program, leaving GE scrambling to adjust its production capabilities.

GE officials, speaking anonymously, revealed that the company had not anticipated such a large order after the initial procurement of 40 Tejas Mk1 jets. By 2013, India's focus had shifted to the more advanced Tejas Mk2, powered by the F414 engine, further diminishing GE's expectations for additional F404 orders. Consequently, GE scaled back its supply chain for the specialized engine, assuming limited future demand.

The 2021 order for 83 Tejas Mk1A jets, bringing the total to 123, significantly disrupted GE's plans. The company faced a daunting supply chain challenge, needing to ramp up production for an engine it had virtually phased out. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated matters, disrupting global supply chains and forcing GE to identify new partners to restart production.

Adding to the complexity, the F404-IN20 engine is a highly customized variant specific to India. While other countries utilize the F404 engine, their versions differ in thrust output and production arrangements, limiting GE's ability to leverage existing resources to meet India's sudden demand.

With India now planning to procure an additional 97 Tejas Mk1A jets, GE is accelerating its production efforts. The company aims to deliver 20 engines per year starting in 2026, with potential for further increases. This commitment is crucial to support the expanding Tejas Mk1A fleet and ensure its operational readiness.

Despite the challenges, GE remains dedicated to fulfilling India's orders and supporting the Tejas Mk1A program. The F404-IN20 engine will continue to play a vital role in India's light combat aircraft fleet until the Tejas Mk2 enters full production.

 

[R. Singh]

We must make GE-404 engines with 80% TOT along with GE-414 engines ! We can't keep waiting for engines from USA for engine change in future ! Make them in India ! Better make enhanced GE-404 (90KN ) and GE-414 ( 110 kn)

 

[jayanth]

Totally Misleading. GE has a team in India which continuously monitor the requirements. Also, during both Tech/ price negotiation time schedules & payment terms are discussed & inked. Wonder who is playing with words & what it is going to achieve.
Al
So such a scenario where production can't meet our own forces requirements their is discussion on exports
Whom are We trying to fool, ourselves???

 

[VedantaKiran]

If GE can manufacture only 20 F404-IN20 engines per year, it means only 20 Tejas MK1A can be produced per year. What is HAL talking about 32 fighers to be manufactured etc? And GE was negotiating with the Indian government for the sale of the engines. They knew fully well about India's plans.

Now they are using every trick to delay the production. Why not transfer the technology to HAL for an engine which they were not manufacturing for the future? It is best for HAL to have a joint venture and take over the manufacturing of the engines in Inda

 

[asthoughtleader]

Fairytale to justify US delay of engines while arranging the toppling game in Bangladesh

The delay was deliberate

So was the German delay in tank engine supply

 

[Leored]

So they think we assume they don't know. Wow their publicity for Indian audiance is so dumb to think that all lobbying to tech transfer etc done in 1 shot. I think such excuses are good to keep indian audiance mouth shut then find another customer and bag more orders.

 

[sanket]

Nice Joke From GE , it means GE-404 Supply chain were dreaming about Chai Samosa. IAF have ordered 20 IOC & 20 FOC , & Based on Modification Further orders were going to b placed second What mean by IOC & FOC .............??? GE dont fool others its your incompetence u were busy in having Chai samosa Third Every Fighter jet in its life span requires 3.5 Engines apart from 40 (IOC+FOC) several Tech Demonstrator were Flying, then what about IOC& FOC According to GE it should b Grounded after Integrating Engines for Once Any way Nice PR From GE , as expected western are Masters in propaganda form hiding there own mistake Lastly spareparts & components needs to replace at certain sortie GE is not new in this Field it have tonnes of experience even then exposed to fullfill its order for taking extra 13 months

 

[Kira]

The point being that Tejas deliveries have nothing to do with GE,but with the tardy practices of HAL amongst other PSUs,after all HAL can simply produce the airframes as per it's capacity and then fit the engines later on.Surely that is not the case.

 

[Anant]

Nice Joke From GE , it means GE-404 Supply chain were dreaming about Chai Samosa. IAF have ordered 20 IOC & 20 FOC , & Based on Modification Further orders were going to b placed second What mean by IOC & FOC .............??? GE dont fool others its your incompetence u were busy in having Chai samosa Third Every Fighter jet in its life span requires 3.5 Engines apart from 40 (IOC+FOC) several Tech Demonstrator were Flying, then what about IOC& FOC According to GE it should b Grounded after Integrating Engines for Once Any way Nice PR From GE , as expected western are Masters in propaganda form hiding there own mistake Lastly spareparts & components needs to replace at certain sortie GE is not new in this Field it have tonnes of experience even then exposed to fullfill its order for taking extra 13 months

1. They weren't dreaming about anything. I have said it before as well, but as the F404IN-20 is a specialised variant, you need a separate line to manufacture those.

2. The 83 Tejas Mk 1A order was not given a lot of warning for. For a comparison, the second order for 97 aircraft was hinted at back in late 2022, and the order is not expected to be signed before the end of this financial year.

3. Each fighter jet needs 3 or 3.5 engines over it's lifetime, sure. However, you missed two things. Firstly, there has always been some talk of replacing the F404 with the Kaveri at some point. Secondly, if only 40 Mk 1/1As were delivered, then these wouldn't require spare engines for a long time. This meant GE could use the IN-20 production line to manufacture other F404s, and eventually build more IN-20 variants when the time to replace engines came around.

4. You cannot expect a company to keep a production line going on an expectation of orders. Had the 83 aircraft deal even been firmly announced, GE may have decided to keep the line going.

See, there is certainly a geopolitical aspect to this. The US is, to an extent, delaying the engines slightly. However, the main factor here is simple economics and how supply chains work.

 

[sanket]

1. They weren't dreaming about anything. I have said it before as well, but as the F404IN-20 is a specialised variant, you need a separate line to manufacture those.

2. The 83 Tejas Mk 1A order was not given a lot of warning for. For a comparison, the second order for 97 aircraft was hinted at back in late 2022, and the order is not expected to be signed before the end of this financial year.

3. Each fighter jet needs 3 or 3.5 engines over it's lifetime, sure. However, you missed two things. Firstly, there has always been some talk of replacing the F404 with the Kaveri at some point. Secondly, if only 40 Mk 1/1As were delivered, then these wouldn't require spare engines for a long time. This meant GE could use the IN-20 production line to manufacture other F404s, and eventually build more IN-20 variants when the time to replace engines came around.

4. You cannot expect a company to keep a production line going on an expectation of orders. Had the 83 aircraft deal even been firmly announced, GE may have decided to keep the line going.

See, there is certainly a geopolitical aspect to this. The US is, to an extent, delaying the engines slightly. However, the main factor here is simple economics and how supply chains work.

GE is failed & exposed, second GE have signed Agreement to deliver the 99 Engines now no Excuse , its shows how professional are they no need to hide incompetency of GE which already had well developed Eco-system & it was IOC & FOC engines order & not Tejas MK1A order, Nothing to do with kaveri Engine replacement have Bharat inform about it to stop production of GE-404 (kaveri as a replacement) it was GE fault knowing a fighter jet requires 3.5 Engine in entire life time & lastly they are ramping up production upto 20 instead of 24 to 30 to make-up the loss for 3 years its Just PR for hiding / face saving from GE for its Incompetence Nothing else , second Boeing was begging for orders as its production line was going to idle this is called double standard

 

[abhinav srivastava]

Companies welcomes additional orders. GE had 3 years to sort out supply chain issues. They are creating fake stories. IAF and HAL should keep ~4 years of engines and spares as inventory.

 

[Vf Feb]

Now dont waste time and further order 100 more engines for 40 fresh Lca Navy np1 fighters which can be used as Lift , deck based trainer and unmanned teaming warfare concept ..

 

[SK]

India needs to sign a deal with US to get GE F404 & F414 Engines manufactured or assembled within India through HAL.

 

[SivaBalan Kumaravel]

GE is failed & exposed, second GE have signed Agreement to deliver the 99 Engines now no Excuse , its shows how professional are they no need to hide incompetency of GE which already had well developed Eco-system & it was IOC & FOC engines order & not Tejas MK1A order, Nothing to do with kaveri Engine replacement have Bharat inform about it to stop production of GE-404 (kaveri as a replacement) it was GE fault knowing a fighter jet requires 3.5 Engine in entire life time & lastly they are ramping up production upto 20 instead of 24 to 30 to make-up the loss for 3 years its Just PR for hiding / face saving from GE for its Incompetence Nothing else , second Boeing was begging for orders as its production line was going to idle this is called double standard

Jet engines can't be made overnight and the order for 83 MK1A came in at a very short notice and immediately order for the engine was placed. There is a news that GE fore warned HAL there will be a slight delay in delivery. HAL can easily deliver Tejas MK1A using the reserve engines till then...something HAL is not fully revealing here...

 

[sanket]

Anothe important thing those who blame production capacity see world Reknowned Aero-Engine Giant have production rate below 16 & even after knowing IAF likely to place urther order of 97 Tejas MK1A are going for expansion from 16 to 20 per year & some people blame HAL for 16 per year jet production ,oh what about order is dependent on production ...............??? Deal for 99 Engine was signed in Aug 2021 & GE is taking Full 5 years to so called Ramp-up capaity from 16 to Only 20 That means its production rate has been increase by whopping 4 Engines year , Nice Expansion /addtion & Great example set by GE & Taking Bharat-US Defence co-operation to Next Level This what they are doing after having skilled man power , Automanization

 

[SivaBalan Kumaravel]

Companies welcomes additional orders. GE had 3 years to sort out supply chain issues. They are creating fake stories. IAF and HAL should keep ~4 years of engines and spares as inventory.

It happens when things are not completly not in our control. GE is not insisting us to use only their engine on Tejas. We can use any other engine or our own...do we have that capability?? No right...Then we have to listen to them...This kind of situation people involved should be proactive and marginally order more engines...But I don't know...HAL may know the full story...

 

[Sandeep]

Sometimes I feel all this special variant is problem we should have gone with basic variant which gives 50/78 KN Thrust. We could hve brought few engines from S.Korea or Sweden Volvo for emergency. If thrust is not satisfactory go with Eurojet with provides 60/90KN. Many claim service life of F404 is 8000 hrs which is same as fighter jet 8000hr so no problem is replacing engines in-between.

 

[Sudha]

This all fiasco happened when HAL/IAF went for a closed line aero engine for mk1a. So 75 engines were supplied out of which maybe 10 at the most went for protoypes of mk1 & 36 for mk1 (god alone knows how much has HAL actually delivered). So a total of 46 engines are used. Let us round it off as 50. So still 25 engines are there with 15 as reserve for mk1, atleast 10 is available for mk1a. So why did HAL delay the delivery of mk1a is the question.

 

[Anant]

GE is failed & exposed, second GE have signed Agreement to deliver the 99 Engines now no Excuse , its shows how professional are they no need to hide incompetency of GE which already had well developed Eco-system & it was IOC & FOC engines order & not Tejas MK1A order, Nothing to do with kaveri Engine replacement have Bharat inform about it to stop production of GE-404 (kaveri as a replacement) it was GE fault knowing a fighter jet requires 3.5 Engine in entire life time & lastly they are ramping up production upto 20 instead of 24 to 30 to make-up the loss for 3 years its Just PR for hiding / face saving from GE for its Incompetence Nothing else , second Boeing was begging for orders as its production line was going to idle this is called double standard

Yeah... no. Supply chain issues are a thing, and the two wars going on haven't helped in the slightest. Need I point to HAL's delays in Su-30MKI production to give you an example?

Secondly, this 99 engine order was for the 83 aircraft order, and not for preceding orders. Engines for those were delivered long back.

GE doesn't work based on instructions from Bharat. They did not foresee us ordering more Tejas Mk 1As, and so they switched over an idle production line (manufacturing the specialised engine variant) back to normal production. They knew full well we, as customers, would not stock the additional engines here (almost no one does), and so would have planned for diverting a production line again for manufacturing of the IN-20 variant at a later date when the 40 Tejas Mk 1/1As came up for engine replacement.

Now, as for how much the production line is being ramped up. If you bother to read the article, it says they will ramp production up to 20 by 2026 and further beyond that. Once the 97 aircraft order for the Tejas Mk 1A is formally given, GE will increase production to even 30-40 engine a year. They need concrete orders to make that kind of investment. Not every company in the world is going to work like a DPSU in India does. Unlike in India, global companies do not have a captive market, and so cannot afford to work based on speculation.

Finally, about your Boeing point: Do you have a basic idea about how production lines work? Boeing manufactures aircraft, while GE manufactures engines. You can't build one on a production line of the other. Hence, this last point from you is utterly wrong.

 

[Anant]

Companies welcomes additional orders. GE had 3 years to sort out supply chain issues. They are creating fake stories. IAF and HAL should keep ~4 years of engines and spares as inventory.

Companies work on firm orders, not speculation. As such, while GE certainly welcomed the extra F404 engine orders, the simple fact is that the low demand of the F404, coupled with the fact the IN-20 variant is a specialised variant, plus demand for other engines, meant they switched over production.

Now, they should have been more proactive in restarting F404IN-20 production, but considering the two wars going on presently, some delays are to be expected. It will purely be GE's fault if they now dither from the promised timelines. That is, if they promise, say, 8 engines by the end of March and fail on that, then it is purely their fault. Even the latest round of delays are technically their fault. Anything before that, not so much.