&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "France, UAE & US to join India’s Tarang Shakti exercise with F16, F35s, Rafales")
India will bring together some of the world’s most advanced combat aircraft over the deserts of Rajasthan this month, as the Indian Air Force hosts the Exercise Tarang Shakti, its flagship multinational air drill, and the first time US F-35 stealth fighters are expected to fly in an Indian military exercise.
The exercise will run from 26 September to 12 October at Jodhpur Air Force Station. Officials say invitations went to 65 countries. Several air forces will fly; many more will send observers.
According to a breakdown circulated with the IAF briefing, foreign assets expected include six US F-35s and two KC-135 tankers; seven French Rafales, three A400Ms and two MRTTs; six UAE F-16s and a Global 6000; two German A400Ms; Australian and Bangladeshi C-130s; and a Sri Lankan King Air 350. India will field Rafales, Su-30MKIs, LCA Tejas, Jaguars, Mirage 2000s, and MiG-29s.
Vice Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit told reporters the 2024 exercise had already marked a shift. “For many years, our operational engagement with foreign air forces was largely through bilateral exercises. We learnt to operate with one partner at a time. Tarang Shakti changed that approach.”
In 2024, he said, 11 countries brought aircraft across two phases. “It was an important transition from exercising primarily bilaterally to planning, operating and integrating with multiple air forces simultaneously.”
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The top Air Force official was careful not to frame the 2026 edition as a parade of hardware. “We do not get Tarang Shakti to demonstrate what we already know… [but] to discover what we still need to learn.” Recent wars, he added, had underlined “precision, speed, integrated air defence, unmanned systems… information dominance, space-enabled capabilities” and multi-domain operations, lessons he said India had also drawn from its own operations.
The exercise, he argued, would let partners test assumptions side by side. It would also display India’s growing defence industry: indigenous platforms, sensors, weapons and unmanned systems.
“Atmanirbharta and international cooperation are not contradictory. They complement each other.”
He explained, “The central story is people… air warriors, the airmen, the airwomen, and countless technicians from different countries. They will be working together, learning together, flying together.”
Tarang Shakti 26, he said, has three aims: operational learning, greater interoperability and stronger partnerships. “India is confident of its own capabilities, open to learning from its partners and prepared to cooperate with them.”
