Aircraft Propulsion

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 ...