AFRL Chooses Adaptive Engine Partners

The Air Force Research Lab has chosen General Electric Aviation and Pratt & Whitney to mature advanced engine technology for future military combat aircraft under the Adaptive Engine Technology Development program. Both companies last week announced that they would enter into negotiations with AFRL to define their respective participation. Already on Sept. 21, AFRL announced the award of a $394.7 million contract to GE Aviation for its adaptive engine work through September 2016. Meanwhile, P&W expects its contract “to be finalized any day now,” company spokesman Matthew Bates told the Daily Report on Sept. 26. Under AETD, “we aim to reduce fuel burn up to 25 percent less than the current generation of combat aircraft engines,” said Bennett Croswell, P&W’s Military Engines president, in the company’s Sept. 18 release. GE Aviation’s technology “will result in up to a 25 percent improvement in fuel efficiency and 30 percent improvement in operating range compared to state-of-the-art engines,” said Jean Lydon-Rodgers, general manager of GE Aviation’s Military Systems Operation, in the company’s Sept. 17 release. (See DOD’s Sept. 21 list of major contracts for GE Aviation’s award.) (For more on AETD, read Adaptive Engines from Air Force Magazine’s September issue.)