by Guy Norris in Connecticut and Cincinnati
Pivotal deal covers six engines as Congress offers funding reprieve for rival General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136
Pratt & Whitney has won the first production contract for F135 engines to power the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while the troubled General Electric Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team has been thrown a potential funding lifeline for the competing F136 by a US Congressional budget committee.
P&W’s initial contract, although it is relatively small and valued at just $23 million, is pivotal as it covers long lead hardware for six engines supporting the first five production F-35 aircraft covering low-rate initial production (LRIP). P&W says the “contract is the first portion of a full LRIP contract valued at up to $120 million through January 2010.”
GE, meanwhile, says the vote by the House Armed Services Committee to restore $408 million of funding for the F136 engine is a “massive endorsement” for the threatened alternate engine programme. This has been battling for survival since being axed from the US Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2007 budget proposal earlier this year as part of moves to save up to $1.8 billion over the Future Years Defense Plan. GE remains cautious, however, as “there are three more [committees] to go” before the F136 can realistically be considered for funding in the 2007 budget which will be signed at year-end, says GE Military Systems president Russ Sparks.
“It won’t be until sometime in September/October before we know for sure where we are,” he says.
P&W expects by the end of May to complete the flight-clearance review of the F135 for the projected first flight of the F-35 late this year. The first flight of the P&W-powered F-35B short take-off and vertical landing variant is scheduled to take place at the end of September 2007.
Source: Flight International
