The F-35’s engine may have parts made from contaminated nickel powder, but the risk to the fleet is considered small, the Joint Program Office and Pratt & Whitney said. Inspections of suspect parts have been made for two years.
Aircraft Propulsion
“The F-35 is the most advanced fighter yet built, but decisions and compromises imposed on it more than a decade ago continue to push up its cost, decrease its reliability, limit its performance, and constrain its ability to exploit new technologies. For fighter pilots of ...
The F-35 Joint Program Office is sticking by its endorsement of Pratt & Whitney’s Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) for the F135 powerplant, saying the improvement will meet all the fighter’s future needs for power. But it declined to weigh in on the increasingly combative war ...
F-35 maker Lockheed Martin thinks the Pentagon should reverse course and pursue the more expensive but technologically advanced Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) for future versions of the fighter, rather than the more incremental F135 Engine Core Upgrade chosen by the Air Force in its ...
Lockheed Martin is pitching its Airbus A330-based LMXT tanker as a “mothership” for the Air Force’s planned fleet of small, stealthy tankers—a rationale company officials hope will overcome the service’s reticence to open its so-called “bridge tanker” buy to competition.
The Pentagon awarded a contract worth over $2 billion for the next batch of F-35 engines to Pratt & Whitney on June 5. The deal for Lot 17 F135 engines, totaling $2.02 billion, is expected to be completed by December 2025.
Rolls-Royce is in the last few months of testing its F130-200 engines before a critical design review of the powerplants, which will equip the re-engined and upgraded B-52J, a company official said. “We’re about one-third through” engine runs with F130-200 Nos. 1 and 2, F130 ...
Airmen inspect the propellers of an MC-130J Commando II in support of exercise Freedom Shield 23 at Daegu Air Base, South Korea, March 13, 2023.
The Air Force couldn't find a place for Adaptive Engine Technology Program powerplants on the F-35 in its fiscal 2024 budget request, opting to harvest what it can from its $4 billion investment and press on to the Next-Generation Advanced Propulsion program.
