Today, India is the only country in the world that still operates British-French supersonic Jaguar attack aircraft. These aircraft were serially produced in the period from 1968 to 1981, meaning as of now they are already about 59 years old.
However, despite their respectable age, India is not going to write them off. And now India is buying up remains of these attack aircraft around the world. Yes, recently they already bought about 20 decommissioned Jaguars together with all spare parts and airframes in Oman.
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And now, Defence Professionals India publishes information that India is negotiating with Ecuador to purchase decommissioned aircraft, probably together with spare parts and everything else available for them.
Also, Defense Express recalls that earlier they were already bought in France in 2018-2019, when the French gave away 32 Jaguar airframes for free, paying only for delivery. Currently, the quantity of Jaguars and spare parts to be purchased in Ecuador is unknown.
However, it can now be noted that Ecuador first in 1974 purchased 10 Jaguar EB units and 2 Jaguar ES units. Later in 1991 they purchased 3 more Jaguar GRs in Britain, to replace those that were lost for certain reasons. Already in 2002 they were decommissioned.
In addition, back in 2024 information appeared about India's intentions to receive from Great Britain 9 decommissioned airframes together with a bunch of various spare parts. The only country from which Indians haven't yet bought Jaguars is Nigeria, but there they were decommissioned back in 1991 due to lack of maintenance funds, after which they stood outdoors for decades, so their condition probably leaves much to be desired.
Obviously, after such mass purchases of Jaguars together with units and spare parts around the world, India is not going to decommission Jaguars in the near future. And indeed, in India they plan to keep them at least until 2035, and individual aircraft if desired can be kept until 2050.
Currently in India there are 6 Jaguar squadrons, with a total number of aircraft about 120 units. All purchased or free Jaguars are unlikely to be put into operation, but will probably be used to repair existing ones through cannibalization.
Despite the significant age of Jaguars in service in India, they regularly undergo modernization, which expands their combat capabilities and extends their service life. In fact, from those same Jaguars only engines and airframe remain here, and all other electronics were completely updated to modern.
But still, despite all updates, they remain old aircraft that don't compare with new and modern ones. However, India cannot just take and throw away 6 squadrons of fully combat-capable aircraft, because for war with China and Pakistan they need at least 42 squadrons of combat aircraft, while now they only have 29. And the situation is not made better by the recent decommissioning of all available MiG-21s.
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