India said it has received bids to develop a powerful engine for the light combat aircraft Tejas, which is under development, to replace the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) aging MiG-21 fleet.
The Defence Ministry has received both commercial and technical responses for GE F414 from General Electric Aviation, US, and for EJ200 from Eurojet Germany, against a request for proposal to procure 99 engines.
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The Aeronautical Development Agency of the DRDO and the Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) are developing the Tejas, a single-seat, single-engine, lightweight, high-agility supersonic fighter aircraft.
The aircraft is equipped with a 23mm twin-barrelled GSh-23 gun with a burst firing rate of 50 rounds a second and muzzle velocity of 715m a second.
The IAF will include 20 Tejas lightweight craft in its fleet, and intends to increase the number to 40.
Earlier, the IAF planned to power the aircraft with a gas turbine research establishment developed GTX-35VS Kaveri, a turbofan engine.
