General Electric Co. has received an order to supply 99 F414-GE-INS6 engines for the Indian Air Force’s light combat aircraft, Tejas. GE Aviation will initially supply a batch of eight engines off-the-shelf, while other 91 will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology. said John Flannery, president and chief executive of GE India.
After evaluation and acceptance of the Technical offer provided by both Eurojet and GE Aviation, the commercial quotes were compared in detail and GE Aviation was declared as the lowest bidder. Further price negotiations and contract finalization will follow. While the initial contract will be for 99 engines for over $650 million, the option for 49 more engines could be exercised later. GE Aviation previously supplied 24 F404-GE-IN20 engines in 2007 and 17 of this engine model in 2004 during the development of the Mk I version of Tejas.
Some believe that this bodes well for American suppliers in the $10 billion competitition for the multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) evaluation.
The India Expert predicts that the MMRCA project is so much larger and more strategic that we should not read much in the Tejas engine announcement.
