Why 2026 Is Critical For Indian Air Force

The Centre has to make some important decisions in 2026 that will be decisive for the IAF’s future: address its immediate problems, maintain its superiority, ensure timely local production and indigenous missile integration with imported fighters, boost Tejas development, and procure a fifth-generation jet.   

IAF’s Two Major Problems

The IAF faces two big interconnected problems.  

First is the rapid depletion in the number of squadrons to 29 against the sanctioned 42.5 — the lowest since 1962, when the IAF had 22 — after the retirement of the IAF’s old warhorse MiG-21 last year. 

One squadron comprises 18 operational jets plus two trainers, a shortage of 765 combat aircraft. 

The next five to six years will be the most critical as the Jaguars, Mirage 2000s and MiG-29s are phased out by 2030-32.

In March 2025, Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh flagged the shortage. “We need to produce or induct aircraft at the rate of two squadrons per year,” he said. 

What’s more worrying is that the IAF has the advantage of only four extra squadrons over the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) 25 while the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) of China has a huge numerical advantage with 66 squadrons. 

Second is the PLAAF’s technological advancement and innovation, and its increasing collaboration with the PAF. 

China’s first and best fifth-generation stealth fighter, the J-20, now has a more advanced variant, the J-20A, and a twin-seater variant, the J-20S. China is also developing two sixth-generation jets with prototypes already flown—the J-36 and the J-50. 

PAF, whose backbone is the Sino-Pakistani multirole JF-17, is set to acquire 30-40 of China’s second fifth-generation stealth fighter, the J-35AE (the export version of the land variant), by year-end. 

“It will give them [Pakistan] an advantage,” Air Chief Marshal Singh said last year. 

While Pakistan could have a fifth-generation stealth fighter in six months, India is still indecisive about acquiring a fifth-generation jet and way behind in building an indigenous aircraft with matching/superior capabilities.

Maintain IAF’s Superiority 

The World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft rates the IAF sixth globally, one rank above the PLAAF, among 103 air forces. As per the 2026 rankings — aircraft quantity, modernisation, logistical support, and attack and defence capabilities — India’s rating is 69.4 while China’s is 63.8.

To maintain its superiority, the IAF needs more modern warplanes, not jets that will be phased out in five to six years. 

For example, only the IAF uses the Jaguar, retired long ago by the UK, France, Oman, Ecuador, and Nigeria. It’s difficult to sustain the six squadrons with erstwhile Anglo-French manufacturer SEPECAT and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) ending production in 1985 and 2008, respectively.

Therefore, India is left with no option but to purchase retired Jaguars from the UK, France and Oman and cannibalise them for engines, landing gears and hydraulics. 

Sustaining ageing jets is a stopgap arrangement, not a way to maintain air superiority, especially when they will be pitted against Pakistan’s F-16, J-10C, JF-17 and J-35AE. 

The IAF’s most modern combat jet is the 4.5-generation Rafale — but with only two squadrons (No. 17 and No. 101 ‘Falcons’).

Even the Rafale’s acquisition is a saga of indecisiveness and delay. 

The initial negotiations with France for 126 Rafales under the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) programme started in February 2012. In May 2015, new negotiations began for only 36 ready-to-fly Rafales, and the contract was signed in September 2016 — but the jets were delivered as late as 2022.

However, the shortage of fighter jets continued despite the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme launched in 2017-18 to acquire 114 fighters. 

Ensure Timely Local Production

Around eight years later, the defence ministry has now sent a letter of request to France to acquire 114 Rafales. 

France will take another two to three months to respond, and according to news reports, a contract is expected to be signed by year-end. 

However, discussions in such mega defence deals drag on for months, if not years, over differences regarding costing, software sharing, licensing and production.  

Another issue is the obstacles to Rafale’s local manufacturing. Of the 114 Rafales under MRFA, 96 will be manufactured locally with 40%-60% indigenous content and 14 purchased in fly-away condition. 

Timely local production depends on how quickly negotiations end, the deal is signed, ready-to-fly jets are delivered, and the assembly line is set up. 

Production is also tied to the jet’s source code, or software, for seamless integration of indigenous missiles and sensors and other modifications. 

A fighter jet’s source code is its brain, which fuses data from radars, infrared cameras and electronic warfare suites; processes pilot commands hundreds of times per second; and integrates with new missiles and bombs without hardware changes. 

France has refused to share Rafale’s source code, including that of the SPECTRA electronic warfare suite. 

Without France’s assistance, India can neither equip the Rafale with local weapons and electronic warfare suites nor upgrade the radar. For example, India could integrate the beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) Astra Mk1 and the Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon (a precision-guided glide bomb) into the Rafale only with Dassault’s help.

There are two other ways through which the IAF can integrate local missiles and sensors and modify the Rafale. 

First is the Interface Control Document (ICD), a technical blueprint of how weapons, electronic warfare systems or sensors communicate with the jet’s architecture. India used the Su-30MKI’s ICD to integrate the Astra Mk1 and Mk2 missiles.

Second is the application programming interface (API), a standardised plug-and-play bridge between the jet’s core computer and its weapons, radars, and electronic warfare pods. If Dassault provides the Rafale’s API, India can integrate the RudraM-II New Generation Anti-Radiation Missile and the Astra Mk2 missile.

Tejas And Its Never-Ending Flight

The IAF wouldn’t have faced the squadron shortage had the Tejas project, earlier known as the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), taken off on time.

A single-engine, 4.5-generation, delta wing, multirole combat jet, Tejas is the smallest and lightest supersonic fighter jet of its generation. 

The LCA programme was established in 1983 to replace the MiG-21s. Complex design, post-Pokhran II sanctions, reliance on imported General Electric F404/F414 engines, the IAF’s changing requirements and HAL’s monopoly delayed the programme. 

The first aircraft took off 17 years later, in 2001, and induction took another 15 years, in 2016. 

Unsurprisingly, HAL hasn’t been able to deliver all 40 Tejas Mk1s even now. Thirty-two single-seaters and six of the eight twin-seater trainers have been delivered. One Tejas Mk1 crashed in Jaisalmer in March 2024.

The delivery of the 180 advanced variant, Tejas Mk1A is also delayed.

The IAF had ordered 83 Mk1As in February 2021 and another 97 in September 2025. However, with HAL’s annual production capacity of 24 jets, the entire fleet will not be inducted before 2033.

The GE F414 engine delay is only one aspect of the Tejas Mk1A delivery problem. The Israeli radar, Swayam Raksha Kavach and weapons firing controls aren’t fully integrated.  

Quest For Fifth-Generation Fighter

India’s quest for a fifth-generation stealth fighter is also a story of indecisiveness and delay.  

India kicked off the Medium Combat Aircraft programme, later renamed as the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), in parallel with the Sukhoi/HAL Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) programme in 2010.

Based on 43 improvements to the Su-57, FGFA India wanted to purchase 166 single-seater FGFAs built by Sukhoi and manufacture 48 twin-seaters.

Finally, India withdrew from the FGFA project in 2018 due to the lack of proper stealth and a “modular engine concept”, doubts about the power of Saturn AL-41F afterburning turbofan engines and Russia’s refusal to share the Su-57’s flight computer and mission software.

Meanwhile, the AMCA programme moved at snail’s pace. The design was finalised after 13 years. The prototype isn’t expected before 2029, and production will not start before 2033-35. In June this year, satellite imagery captured the AMCA’s full-scale engineering at the ORANGE Outdoor Radar Cross Section Test Facility of the Research Centre Imarat at the Dundigal Air Force Facility, near Hyderabad.

Now, India is again interested in the Su-57D, the twin-seater variant of Russia’s Su-57E (export version), designed specifically to meet the IAF’s requirements, following Russia’s taxi trials.

In June, Russia again offered to India the joint development of the Su-57E without any technical restrictions. 

This is the third time Russia has offered to sell the Su-57E and grant HAL a license to produce it following India’s exit from the FGFA programme. In July 2019, Russia offered to co-develop a Sukhoi Su-57 variant. In February 2025, Russia’s state-owned defence exporter, Rosoboronexport, offered a Su-57E production partnership.

Further delay in procuring the Su-57D could be extremely risky. 

PLAAF has already deployed its most prized fifth-generation jet, the J-20, at Tibet’s Shigatse Air Base, 150 km from the LAC near Sikkim. The air base is 300 km from the Rafale 101 Squadron at Hasimara Air Force Station, West Bengal, within the maximum range of the J-20’s PL-15 BVRAAM. 

The AMCA is almost a decade away. The IAF’s best option, though temporary, is to have, at least, one squadron of Su-57D. 

(The writer is a columnist with more than two decades of experience in journalism. Views expressed are personal.)