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Having already received around 30 Rafale combat aircraft from France, the Indian Air Force would start upgrading its fleet of French-origin fighters from January 2022, with India specific enhancements.
“A high-level team of Indian Air Force officers is in France to evaluate the performance of the testbed aircraft with tail number RB-008 at the Istres airbase there. The aircraft has been equipped with all the India Specific Enhancements agreed upon between the two sides in the 2016 contract,” government sources told ANI in New Delhi.
Once the enhancements are approved and accepted by the IAF, the upgrade is planned to be started from January next year onwards making the Indian planes more capable, they said.
The India specific enhancements would include integration of highly capable missiles, low band jammers and satellite communication systems as per Indian requirements.
India has already received around 30 of these planes and three more of them would be arriving in the country on December 7-8.
