By Rob Buckland

Aero-engine giant Rolls-Royce’s Bristol plant has received a boost from the David Cameron-led trade mission to India with a contract worth up to £200million to supply engines for Hawk trainer jets to be used by the Indian Air Force and Navy.

The contract was signed in Bangalore by the Prime Minister, who is leading a delegation of six ministers and more than 30 senior executives of UK firms.

The Adour Mk871 engines for the 57 BAE Systems Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers will be assembled in Bangalore by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in partnership with Rolls-Royce.

The Adour is a mainstay of Roll-Royce’s Patchway plant in Bristol, which makes parts and assembles engines for many of the world’s leading military aircraft including the Eurofighter Typhoon, Apache helicopter and Airbus’s A400M military transporter. It also makes engines for military boats and small parts for civil aviation engines.

Rolls-Royce has been working with HAL in India since 1956 and has already supplied some earlier versions of the Adour for the Indian Air Force, including those used in its Jaguar combat jets.

Rolls-Royce sales and commercial director – defence, Chris Awde, said: “This follow-on order for the Adour engine is a huge vote of confidence, both for the capabilities of the engine and the partnership we have developed with HAL for over 50 years.

“India is strategically important to Rolls-Royce and we will continue to look at new programmes that expand our partnership in the future.”

The order came as Rolls-Royce revealed better-than-expected first-half profits of £465m, up from £445m a year ago, on sales up from £5.14bn to £5.42bn. Its order book stayed level at £58.4bn.

Chief executive John Rose said: “We now expect underlying profit for the full-year to be modestly higher than 2009, mainly due to good cost control and a strong trading performance from our Marine business.”

The Bristol-based defence aerospace division achieved a 5% increase in underlying revenues to just over £1bn with underlying profits up 16% to £158m, helped by an improved operating performance and lower restructuring and research and development costs.

The division was boosted during the period by milestones in the development of the TP400 engine for the A400M, the liftsystem for the STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the alternative F136 engine for the same aircraft.

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