The final version of the fiscal 2024 appropriations bill includes three additional F-35As for the Air Force, along with a hefty amount for additional engine spares, even though the extra jets didn't appear on USAF’s Unfunded Priorities List.
The F-35 Joint Program Office has officially announced plans to issue multiple sole-source contracts to Pratt & Whitney to upgrade the fighter’s F135 engine—a widely expected move after Pentagon officials indicated they would do so earlier this year instead of developing an entirely new engine.
If the Air Force and Pentagon decide the F-35 fighter needs an all-new engine, it wouldn’t just give the jet range and performance improvements—it would drive a refresh of the entire fighter propulsion industrial base, a GE Aerospace official claimed Feb. 16. Competitor Pratt & ...
A month after F-35 fighter deliveries were halted pending an investigation into a Dec. 14 crash, Pratt & Whitney said it has a fix in hand that will allow deliveries to resume by the end of February. The problem had to do with harmonic resonance, ...
Pratt & Whitney would like to keep its monopoly on supplying powerplants for the F-35 fighter fleet and is pushing for the government to choose an upgrade of the F135 engine instead of an all-new adaptive engine, which it said would be far more costly ...
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 ...
A deal on the next three-lot buy of F-35 fighters is dragging out because Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office are struggling to agree on a new cost baseline, affected by inflation, the pandemic and a reduced buy from the military services, company officials ...
Pratt & Whitney is testing its Adaptive Engine Technology Program XA101 powerplant and has already demonstrated the objective goals for the program, company military engines president Matthew Bromberg said. He estimates that up to 70 percent of the technology could be fitted to improve fighter ...
The Air Force wants to use propulsion developed under the Adaptive Engine Technology Program in the F-35A but may not be able to afford doing so on its own if the Navy doesn't also underwrite some of the integration effort, Department of the Air Force ...