Pratt & Whitney F117 engines recently surpassed their 10 millionth flight hour on the C-17 transport, announced the company. “This milestone is a testament to the reliability of the F117 engine,” said Beverly Deachin, the company’s vice president for military programs and customer support. “The exceptional performance of our engines—in some of the harshest conditions—has helped the C-17 Globemaster III save countless lives in military, humanitarian, and disaster relief missions,” she added in the company’s Feb. 21 release. Each C-17 carries four F117 turbofans. Constant upgrades to increase reliability and efficiency have increased the F117’s average “on-wing” time between overhauls to eight years, states the release. The F117 first entered service in 1993. So far, there are some 250 C-17s in worldwide service, including 218 in the Air Force’s fleet. P&W said it has delivered more than 1,100 F117 engines thus far.
Due to the prolonged delay in deliveries of the Tech Refresh 3 version of the F-35 fighter, Denmark is pulling six of its TR-2-configured F-35 jets stationed in the U.S. back to home base in order to consolidate aircraft and get better training for its pilots and maintainers, the Danish…