In a booster shot for the country's depleting air combat capabilities, India has received the first lot of Rafale fighters with India-specific enhancements to make them deadlier, even as indigenous Tejas jets are being deployed for a multi-nation exercise abroad for the first time.
Three Rafale jets touched down in India last week, taking the total number of the 4.5-generation fighters delivered to 35 now under the £5.9 billion deal inked with France in September 2016.
The three Rafales have come with hardware tweaks for the 13 India-specific enhancements (ISEs), which includes the capability to fire top-notch Meteor air-to-air missiles, while the software upgrade will take place here.
The last or the 36th Rafale, on which the ISEs have been tested and certified in France, will be delivered in April. “A French team is in India for the ongoing hardware and software upgrade for the jets delivered earlier. Two to three jets will be retrofitted with the ISEs per month,” a source
said.
Already armed with the over 300km range ‘Scalp’ air-to-ground cruise missiles and other armaments, the Meteor missiles with a strike range of 120 to 150-km will make the omni-role Rafales lethal in beyond visual range combat with Chinese or Pakistani jets.
