The forgotten Indian fighter that could have changed defence history

In 1961, India made global aerospace history. On a Bangalore airstrip, a silver-grey fighter jet lifted off the tarmac and soared into the sky. The aircraft was the HF-24. The man in the cockpit was Wing Commander Suranjan Das. And the moment marked India’s entry into a one-of-a-kind club.The Hindustan Fighter-24 (HF-24), designed in India and capable of supersonic speeds, was the first such aircraft to be built outside the Western world. For a country just 14 years into independence, whose industrial base was still emerging from colonial rule and exploits, it was a feat of staggering ambition.Defence minister VK Krishna Menon, who witnessed the maiden flight on June 24, 1961, declared it a “landmark in the history of Indian aviation”. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in a message the next day, called it “a matter of pride for the Air Force and Indian aviation generally”.But this is not just a case of singular engineering triumph. It is also about how India once dared to lead the world in defence technology — and why it lost that edge. When HF-24 took flightTo understand why the jet was revolutionary, one must understand how improbable it was. India in the 1950s was still dependent on foreign imports for almost every advanced machine, from aircraft to oil rigs. While Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL), headquartered in Bangalore, had existed since 1940, its role had been largely that of a license manufacturer: Assembling British-designed aircraft like the Vampire (a first-generation jet fighter, was one of the earliest RAF operational jet aircraft) and the Gnat (a smaller, more agile jet that served as both a fighter and a trainer).HAL was a public-sector undertaking under the Ministry of Defence, and for most of its early existence, it built aircraft designed elsewhere. Indigenous aviation design capability was non-existent. But in 1956, the central government made a radical decision. Instead of importing yet another foreign jet, it would build one from scratch — not just assemble parts, but design, prototype, test, and manufacture a frontline fighter jet with Indian hands. That this decision was even entertained is remarkable. That it came so close to succeeding makes it historic.But India didn’t begin this journey alone. The country turned to a man who had once been at the forefront of German aviation: Dr Kurt Tank.Tank had designed the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, one of the most effective fighter planes of World War II. Post-war restrictions had exiled many German scientists, and Tank found his way to Argentina before eventually accepting Nehru’s invitation to come to India. Working out of HAL’s design bureau in Bangalore, Tank led a multinational team of engineers — mostly German and Indian — in designing a supersonic-capable aircraft tailored to India’s needs. It was to be a twin-engine, all-weather bomber and ground-attack aircraft that could also serve as an interceptor. The IAF wanted something fast, powerful, and homegrown.Tank delivered a remarkable design. The HF-24 featured sharply swept wings, a thin fuselage, and “area ruling” — a cutting-edge aerodynamic principle that allowed planes to maintain stability as they approached the speed of sound. It was tested at the Indian Institute of Science and compared favourably with global designs. Tank himself later said the Indian engineers he worked with were as capable as any he had encountered in Europe. The man who flew the dreamTo fly this machine, HAL turned to Suranjan Das, one of India’s most accomplished pilots at the time. Trained in Canada and the UK, Das had more than 2,700 flying hours and had flown 35 aircraft types, including the Mach 2-capable Lightning.On June 24, 1961, Das took the HF-24 aloft. Thousands of Bangaloreans lined the two-mile stretch along the HAL runway. As the jet thundered overhead, dignitaries including Air Chief Marshal AM Engineer, nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha, and Defence Secretary O. Pulla Reddy erupted in applause.The flight lasted just under 30 minutes. It did not break the sound barrier — that would require an engine more powerful than what was available — but that was not the point. The jet had flown. It had not been imported. It had been designed, fabricated, and tested by Indian engineers. And that mattered. What held HF-24 backThe HF-24 was initially powered by two Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 703 engines — the same units used in HAL’s Gnat fighters. These were sufficient for subsonic performance but not enough to take the aircraft beyond Mach 1 in level flight.The jet had been designed for a more advanced engine: Orpheus 12, which NATO had planned to develop for frontline European fighters. But when NATO scrapped the programme in the late 1950s, India’s options vanished. The country was left with a high-performance airframe and no engine to match.Efforts to develop or import alternatives failed. Egypt’s Brandner engine couldn’t be integrated. HAL attempted to fit a reheat system (afterburner) onto the Orpheus 703s, but it wasn’t enough. Tragically, Suranjan Das was killed in 1970 while test-flying a modified prototype with the reheat configuration.India had built a supersonic airframe, but without a supersonic engine, the Marut — as the HF-24 was later named — could never fulfil its promise. Another critical obstacle was India’s industrial ecosystem, or lack thereof. In the West, aircraft manufacturers relied on hundreds of subcontractors to build components: hydraulic systems, wheels, brake assemblies, cockpit electronics. In India, HAL had to do almost everything itself.A government committee in 1967 observed that the Bangalore division of HAL had no prior experience in the productionisation of an indigenous aircraft. Earlier projects, like the HT-2, were far simpler trainers. For others, like the Vampire and Gnat, HAL had merely assembled aircraft using licensor-supplied designs.The HF-24 was a different beast. Pre-production labour was estimated at 1.1 lakh man-hours per aircraft. In reality, each prototype took nearly 9 lakh hours. Tooling alone consumed over 11 lakh hours — far beyond the 3 lakh originally budgeted for full production tooling. Production delays mounted as design and assembly ran in parallel without a supporting vendor base.Despite all this, the HF-24 Marut entered service with the Indian Air Force in May 1964. Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan named the aircraft “Marut,” Sanskrit for “spirit of the storm”. HAL handed over 141 Maruts over the next decade. While the aircraft never reached supersonic speeds, it was praised for its safety, stability, and ease of maintenance.During the 1971 war, Maruts flew over 200 strike missions in the western sector, especially Rajasthan. Squadron Leader KK Bakshi even shot down a Pakistani F-86 Sabre on December 7, 1971 — one of the rare aerial kills scored by an Indian-built fighter. Three Marut pilots earned the Vir Chakra.Why it vanishedBy the late 1970s, the Marut was quietly phased out. It was underpowered. It couldn’t be upgraded. And India, under pressure to modernise, opted to import newer aircraft like the MiG-21 and Mirage 2000.Attempts to revive the HF-24 — by fitting it with better engines or selling it to foreign countries — also did not work. The aircraft had been ahead of its time in ambition but was undone by the very ecosystem that birthed it.And crucially, when India started developing the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) in the 1980s, HAL was sidelined. The newly created Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) was made responsible for the project. The institutional knowledge built during the Marut programme was scattered.Today, the HF-24 Marut remains a lesson in how ambition must be matched by infrastructure and long-term strategy. Its failures weren’t technical; they were systemic. What nextIndia is reportedly working on fifth-generation stealth aircraft, unmanned drones, and the AMCA (Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft) — a next-gen multirole fighter. HAL has matured, and its production engineering teams have grown manifold. But engine development remains a bottleneck.The Kaveri engine project, launched in the 1980s to end India’s dependence on foreign jet engines, has still not produced an operational combat-grade engine. Without propulsion independence, India’s dream of full defence indigenisation remains incomplete.As India’s skies fill with Rafales, Sukhois, and Tejas fighters, the ghost of Marut still lingers. It also serves as a stark reminder of what was once achieved, and what could have been.