Indigenous Aircrafts with Foreign Engines

Jet engine is a highly technical and complicated machine and is therefore mastered only by technically most advanced countries. It is also evident that aviation is one of the world's most important businesses and it is no surprise that the "business secrets" have been well-guarded. Jet engines are designed and manufactured mainly by USA, Russia, United Kingdom and France. Anyone aspiring to build an indigenous aircraft with gas turbine propulsion system has to buy engines from one of these four countries with some options in Canada. China has been designing and producing aircrafts (military and civil) for several decades but still has not succeeded in designing a reliable jet engine. Chinese fighter aircrafts are mostly equipped with licence-produced or imported Russian engines.

Gas turbine propulsion systems started to dominate both the civil and military aviation in the post-Second World War period (1945 onwards). In common parlance, they were called jet engines.

Till 1970s, turbojet engine was the most common gas turbine propulsion system for jet aeroplanes and reciprocating piston-engines were used by propeller-powered aeroplanes. Around 1980, turbofan engines slowly replaced the turbojets and reciprocating piston-engines were replaced by turboprop engines, except in the smaller General Aviation aircrafts.

Helicopters of post-WWII era also used reciprocating piston-engines. Later on, helicopters switched to turboshaft engines. These turbojet, turbofan, turboprop and turboshaft engines are all gas turbine powerplants.

Several countries around the globe have undertaken projects to build their own aircrafts with gas turbine powerplants, be it for transport or for national defence needs. With one exception, these projects have one element in common, that is, they use either imported or licence-produced gas turbine powerplants. The exception is 1960s Egyptian HA-300 fighter aircraft project with its own E-300 engine. The project was apparently cancelled on cost grounds. 

To illustrate this with examples, we can start by the projects undertaken in the South Asia and then others. Here I don't need to include the details of the powerplants used in the indigenous aircraft projects.

1. Pakistan's JF-17 fighter uses a Russian powerplant.
2. Sino-Pak K-8 trainer uses either a US or a Russian/Ukrainian engine licence-produced in China.
3. India launched an ambitious project of indigenous fighter aircraft in the 1960s called HF-24 Marut. The major set-back for this project was its jet engine. A British engine (Bristol Siddeley Orpheus) was employed but it was under-powered and failure to replace it with a powerful engine doomed this project. The same Bristol Siddeley Orpheus powerplant was also used in the Italian Fiat G91 Ground Attack Fighter.
4. India's LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) Tejas has used US-made General Electric F404 engines. The indigenous engine Kaveri was supposed to power the LCA but reportedly it has not yet been proved to be capable of doing so. This is despite the fact that the research spans more than three decades.
5. India's Dhruv LCH (Light Combat Helicopter) uses licence-produced powerplants of Turbomeca (France).  
6. India's HJT-36 Sitara jet trainer is programmed to use a Russian licence-produced engine.
7. Saras Light Transport Aircraft of India uses a Canadian Pratt and Whitney powerplant. Now lets look at some projects in the rest of Asia and in Europe.
8. South-Korean KAI F-50 Golden Eagle uses licence-produced General Electric F404 turbofan powerplants (USA).
9. Taiwan's F-CK-1 fighter uses a Garrett (Honeywell) powerplant (USA).
10. Japan's Mitsubishi F-1 and F-2 fighters both use powerplants from Rolls-Royce (UK) and General Electric (USA) respectively.
11. Italo-Brazilian AMX Ground Attack Fighter uses a Rolls-Royce powerplant (UK), the famous Spey of RAF F-4 Phantom IIs.
12. Italian M-346 Master of Alenia-Aermacchi uses Honeywell powerplants (USA). Italian Aermacchi MB-339 used a Rolls-Royce engine. 
13. Yugoslav-Romanian J-22 Orao Ground-Attack Fighter Aircraft used a Rolls-Royce turbojet engine among others.
14. Czech L-39 Albatros and L-159 Alca use a Soviet powerplant and Honeywell powerplant (USA) respectively.

There are many other aircrafts that can be included in the list but the aforementioned examples would suffice to get a broad picture.