India to Cut Stealth Fighter Order by Third

India is cutting its order for a fifth-generation stealth fighter being developed jointly with Russia by a third, India's Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne told India Strategic.


India will now order just 144 of the fighters, all single-seat models, Browne said, down from an originally-intended batch of around 200, including 48 two-seaters.

The original figure, of 200 aircraft, would have been possible if the aircraft was ready by 2017, with the first batch coming from Russian production lines. But India now wants to take on a greater share of development, pushing back the production date for the Indian variant, which is likely to be 2020 at the earliest.



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