3 Rafale fighters with Indian enhancements to arrive on Feb 1-2
The last contracted Rafale fighter is expected to arrive in India in April concluding the 36 aircraft contract with France. This fighter, fitted with all India specific enhancements, actually was the first fighter used for training Indian fighter pilots.
The stage is set for Indian Air Force (IAF) to receive last four Rafale fighters from France from February with all of them fully equipped with India specific enhancements, which will give extra teeth to fight any regional adversary.
IAF's Rafale jet fighter doing the vertical Charlie maneuver on 2021 Republic Day.
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It is understood that three Rafale fighters are expected to leave Istres-Le Tube air base, north-west of Marseille in south France, around February 1-2 depending on the weather conditions and arrive in India after due mid-air refueling by close ally, the United Arab Emirates Air Force, using Airbus multi-role transport tankers.
While the last fighter is nearly ready with fresh paint and enhancements, the fighter for reasons best known to IAF will arrive only in April, 2022. The last of the 36 contracted fighters from France is actually the first fighter used for training IAF personnel after the deliveries started from France. This fighter was inspected by Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar at the Istres air base during his visit to France for a high level defence dialogue in December 2021.
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Although IAF remains tight-lipped over what India specific enhancements are on Rafale, it is learnt that these relate to long range Meteor air-to-air missile, low band frequency jammers, advanced communication systems, more capable radio altimeter, radar warning receiver, high altitude engine start up, synthetic aperture radar, ground moving target indicator and tracking, missile approach warning systems and very high frequency range decoys.
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Although IAF remains tight-lipped over what India specific enhancements are on Rafale, it is learnt that these relate to long range Meteor air-to-air missile, low band frequency jammers, advanced communication systems, more capable radio altimeter, radar warning receiver, high altitude engine start up, synthetic aperture radar, ground moving target indicator and tracking, missile approach warning systems and very high frequency range decoys.
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On the arrival of the fighter jets, the IAF will test the specific enhancements to their satisfaction under Indian conditions apart from verifying the original equipment manufacturers claims as per agreement. After this, work will begin in retrofitting the remaining 32 aircraft at Ambala in western sector and Hashimara air base in eastern sector with the India specific enhancements with all the related equipment already with the IAF. The upgradation exercise will be carried out at Ambala air base which has the maintenance cum repair set up for Rafale fighters in India.
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In light of the Indian acquisition of Rafale, the Pakistani air force has decided to go for 25 Chinese made J-10 multi-role fighters as a counter and PLA Air Force has deployed the J-20, so called fifth generation fighter, at Hotan, Lhasa, Kashgar and Nyingchi air bases in Tibet and Sinkiang.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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