GE’s AETP offering, called the XA100, delivers 25% better fuel efficiency, twice the thermal management capacity, and at least 10% more thrust than the existing F-35 engine. The XA100’s three test campaigns—including one currently taking place at the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC)—have ...
Aircraft Propulsion
Meeting with reporters, industry leaders, and military officials from across the world at the Farnborough International Airshow, engine-makers Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation laid out their competing visions for the future of F-35 propulsion. While executives from both companies agreed that the fifth-gen fighter’s ...
The Pentagon handed out more than $80 million in contracts for work on the F-35’s engines and weapons integration as well as another $25 million to support the development of a joint simulation environment for the F-22. The largest of the deals handed out went ...
Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney military engines unit received a $4.385 billion Naval Air Systems Command contract for 178 of its F135 engines to power all variants of the F-35 fighter. The eventual contract value could be as much as $8 billion. The contract ...
Whether the F-35 fighter will get new engines from the Air Force’s cutting-edge Adaptive Engine Transition Program is a question that needs to be resolved at the Defense Department level, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers May 17—and he anticipates an answer in the ...
GE’s XA100 engine translates to 30% more range for the Air Force’s F-35A, 20-40% faster acceleration, and double the power and thermal management capacity versus existing engines. GE’s engine is also designed to bring these performance impacts to the carrier-based F-35C with no structural modifications ...
Forty years since the Air Force first started thinking about replacing the eight engines on the B-52, the job is finally underway. The re-engining is the centerpiece of an upgrade that will keep the Stratofortress operationally relevant for another 20 to 30 years. Two new F130 ...
After decades of combat flying in the harsh Middle East environment, the Air Force embarked on an aggressive program to deal with an insidious problem that steals aircraft performance, greatly increases maintenance requirements, results in higher fuel consumption rates, and increases emissions. The culprit, the constant erosion and corrosion of high pressure compressor and turbofan blades due to ...
The world’s largest defense contractor says it’s given up on trying to buy the only U.S. maker of certain propulsion components of missiles and missile defense kill vehicles. The Federal Trade Commission announced in January that it was suing Lockheed Martin to block the company ...