NEW DELHI: GE Aerospace, a unit of United States-based General Electric Co, said on Thursday it has signed a deal to produce its F414 fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States.
The agreement includes the potential joint production of F414 engines in India, GE Aerospace said in a statement, noting the expanding defence cooperation between the two countries.
The engines will be used in India’s domestically-made light-combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas.
GE said it began working with HAL in 1986 to support the development of the Indian LCA with F404 engines.
“In total, 75 F404 engines have been delivered and another 99 are on order for LCA Mk1A. Eight F414 engines have been delivered as part of an ongoing development program for LCA Mk2,“ it said.
GE has a research and technology centre at Bengaluru in Karnataka state and a multimodal factory at Pune in Maharashtra.-Bernama
