First 20 Tejas Mk1A Jets Built and Flight-Tested; Deliveries Hinge on GE Engines

Twenty fighters built, flight-tested, and parked. That is the state of the Tejas Mk1A programme as of late July: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has completed manufacturing and first-phase flight testing on the first 20 Mk1A jets, Chairman and Managing Director Dr D.K. Sunil confirmed on 21 July 2026 — yet not one has entered Indian Air Force service, because the American engines that must power them are still arriving in single digits.

The figures rewrite the programme’s usual storyline. For years the criticism aimed at India’s state-owned planemaker was that it could not build fast enough. That charge no longer fits the facts. Around 30 Mk1A airframes across fighter and trainer variants are now either fully built or in advanced assembly, and HAL’s combined Bengaluru and Nashik production lines can turn out 24 to 30 aircraft a year. To keep test schedules moving without production powerplants, the completed jets were flown on Category-B GE F404 engines — units reserved for trials rather than combat duty. The airframe problem, in short, is solved.

What remains is the engine. HAL had received seven production-standard GE F404-IN20 engines by late July 2026, against a first tranche of 20 jets waiting for them. GE Aerospace is expected to ship another 20 to 22 engines before 31 December, with dispatch rates projected to climb after October. The arithmetic is unforgiving and simple: each arriving engine converts a finished airframe into a deliverable fighter, and nothing else in the pipeline moves the needle.

On that basis, HAL and the air force expect the first batch to be handed over between end-August and early September 2026, provided engine supply settles into a steady state. Industry projections put 18 to 24 jets with the IAF by the close of the year — enough, if the flow holds, to lay the foundation of a second Mk1A squadron by the end of 2026.

The order book explains why the schedule matters so much. The IAF contracted 83 Mk1A aircraft — 73 fighters and 10 trainers — in February 2021, and the government approved a further 97 in September 2025, taking the planned fleet to 180 jets. That makes the Mk1A the largest single fighter commitment in the air force’s modernisation plan, and the principal instrument for rebuilding squadron strength that has been depleted as older types retire faster than replacements arrive.

For HAL, the July milestone is also an argument. Having 20 jets through first-phase flight testing, with roughly 10 more close behind, demonstrates that the production system built for the Mk1A — new line at Nashik included — works at the rate the 180-jet programme demands. The company’s exposure has narrowed to a single foreign dependency, and that dependency now has published numbers attached to it: seven engines in hand, over 20 more promised within five months, and a delivery window measured in weeks rather than years.

The next markers are concrete. If the first Mk1A reaches the IAF by early September, the programme will have moved from promise to delivery five and a half years after contract signature. If GE’s dispatch rate rises after October as projected, the end-2026 count of 18 to 24 jets becomes achievable rather than aspirational. Both outcomes now rest on a supply chain that stretches from GE Aerospace’s engine plants to HAL’s final assembly halls — and on nothing else.