India currently operates the world's only fleet of British-French SEPECAT Jaguar supersonic jet attack aircraft. The Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) recently agreed to hand over its SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft, which were decommissioned before 2014 together with spare parts to India.
Oman plans to transfer more than 20 SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft to India, although it had a total of 27 such jets, of which 13 were lost during operation. Therefore, it is planned to transfer not only more or less serviceable aircraft, but also decommissioned airframes as well as all spare parts. Probably, everything that comes from Oman will be cannibalized and used to repair existing aircraft. This is reported by Scramble.
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From Defense Express we add that India has a total of 6 SEPECAT Jaguar squadrons, each of which has up to 20 aircraft, that is, a total of about 120 units, which is a fairly significant part of the Indian Air Force. Previously, India has already purchased decommissioned Jaguars along with spare parts, in particular 32 airframes in France in 2018-2019 - then the Indians paid just for delivery.
Despite the fact that the SEPECAT Jaguar was developed back in the 1960s, it has been modernized in India. The modernization of this aircraft was carried out under the DARIN program, which underwent three upgrades, and in the latest DARIN III, the SEPECAT Jaguar received an active phased array radar, new avionics and a number of other improvements.
In addition, the upgrades significantly extended the airframe's service life, which would probably allow individual jets to be operated even until 2050. However, it is unlikely that there would be enough spare parts for the repair and maintenance of the SEPECAT Jaguar by that time, since supplies are limited, and production was stopped back in 2008.
Currently, the SEPECAT Jaguar is still being held by the Indian Air Force due to a shortage of combat aircraft, as to confront Pakistan and China, they need at least 42 squadrons of combat aircraft, and currently they have only 29. Moreover, the situation is complicated by the recent decommissioning of all MiG-21 light fighters.
Therefore, India cannot simply take and decommission 6 more squadrons of fully operational SEPECAT Jaguar supersonic jet attack aircraft, which, thanks to upgrades, still remain usable.
However, India has a plan to gradually to retire all its SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft by about 2032. Then they should be replaced by more modern fighters of its own production Tejas Mk 1, Tejas Mk 2 and the newest 5th generation AMCA, the project of which has been approved just last year.
However, if the production of these aircraft falls significantly behind the production plan, in particular due to the proprietary engine that takes an unheard of half a century to develop, and the situation in the region worsens, it is possible that India will have to maintain some SEPECAT Jaguars in the future.
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