Prolonged negotiations continue to delay a key India-US fighter engine programme.
Sixteen years after selecting General Electric’s F414 engine to power its future fleet, India is still negotiating how to manufacture it.
When India and the United States announced a landmark agreement in June 2023 to jointly produce the fighter jet engine in India, it was projected as a definitive breakthrough in bilateral defence cooperation. But the chronology of the programme tells a much longer story, one that stretches back sixteen years and spans four US presidencies.
India’s association with the F414 did not begin with the Modi-Biden announcement. It began on 1 October 2010, when the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) selected 99 F414-GE-INS6 engines to power the Tejas Mk2 fighter. In its official announcement that day, GE Aviation said it would supply the initial batch of engines while “the rest will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology arrangement.” The decision followed India’s earlier procurement of 17 GE F404 engines in 2004 and another 24 in 2007 for the Tejas Mk1 programme.
Despite the engine selection in 2010 and GE’s public statement on manufacturing in India, no comprehensive co-production agreement emerged over the next thirteen years. The issue returned to the forefront only in June 2023 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington, when GE Aerospace and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue co-production of the F414 engine in India. The announcement envisaged a deeper industrial partnership involving technology transfer, local manufacturing and US export approvals.
Three years later, however, the commercial contract remains unsigned. Technical negotiations have been completed, but the two sides are yet to conclude the commercial agreement governing production in India.
The commonly cited explanation by a section of the media for the prolonged timeline is that the Tejas Mk2 programme itself underwent repeated delays, design evolution and changing operational requirements. Those factors undoubtedly affected the aircraft programme. Yet one aspect remained unchanged throughout the period: the F414 selected by ADA in 2010 continues to be the engine planned for the Tejas Mk2.
The chronology therefore raises a broader question. If the engine selection remained constant, why did it take until 2023 for a renewed co-production framework to be negotiated, and why is the manufacturing agreement still pending in 2026?
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based GE Aerospace has not publicly provided a detailed explanation for the thirteen-year gap between the original engine selection and the 2023 announcement, or for why the manufacturing arrangement referred to in GE’s own 2010 statement did not materialise during that period.
A detailed questionnaire was sent to GE seeking their response. GE did not respond by the publication deadline. The programme has now extended across four US presidencies. India selected the engine during Barack Obama’s administration. The proposed manufacturing arrangement remained unresolved through Donald Trump’s first term, was revived under Joe Biden with the June 2023 India-US initiative, and remains under commercial negotiation during Donald Trump’s second term.
India’s timeline also stands apart from other F414 operators. South Korea selected the engine for its KF-21 Boramae fighter in 2016 and concluded a domestic license-manufacturing agreement within the same year. Australia and Kuwait acquired the F414 as part of complete F/A-18 Super Hornet purchases through the US Foreign Military Sales programme, while Sweden incorporated the engine into the Gripen E through Saab’s industrial partnership with GE. None involved a publicly documented negotiation extending sixteen years from engine selection to an unsigned domestic manufacturing agreement.
The commercial negotiations have now become the latest obstacle. Indian media reports citing defence establishment sources have said India originally expected the 99-engine programme to cost less than US$1 billion.
More recent reports have suggested GE’s commercial demands are substantially higher, with some claiming the quoted price has nearly tripled and includes significant costs for establishing the production line in India. Neither GE Aerospace nor the Indian government has publicly confirmed those figures; the commercial terms under negotiation also remain undisclosed.
The pricing issue, however, represents only the latest chapter in a much longer programme. The F414 is no longer just the engine for the Tejas Mk2. It is also the designated powerplant for the initial version of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), placing it at the centre of India’s future combat aviation roadmap.
The prolonged timeline has therefore had implications beyond the engine programme itself. The Indian Air Force currently operates around 29 fighter squadrons against a sanctioned strength of 42.5. That shortfall is the result of multiple factors, including the retirement of ageing MiG-series aircraft, delayed acquisitions, the pace of Tejas Mk1A production and the absence of a new medium fighter procurement. However, the continued delay in the Tejas Mk2 programme has also deferred the induction of an aircraft intended to replace ageing Mirage 2000s, Jaguars and MiG-29s over time.
The impact extends further. Since the AMCA Mk1 has also been designed around the F414, any prolonged uncertainty over the manufacturing agreement has the potential to affect timelines for India’s fifth-generation fighter programme unless imported engines continue to bridge the gap.
The significance of the current negotiations therefore extends well beyond a commercial contract. They will influence the pace of indigenous fighter production, the future of India’s aerospace manufacturing ecosystem and the Indian Air Force’s long-term force modernisation plans.
Sixteen years after India selected the F414 for the Tejas Mk2, thirteen years after GE publicly stated that the remaining engines would be manufactured in India under a transfer-of-technology arrangement, and three years after the India-US co-production announcement, the agreement needed to manufacture the engine in India remains unfinished. The chronology itself illustrates how one of the most strategically important defence-industrial programmes between India and the United States has unfolded over more than a decade and a half.
