Pratt & Whitney has announced that its fleet of F117 engines, the powerplants for C-17 airlifters used by the Air Force, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Royal Australian Air Force, has logged more than five million operational flight hours. “The five million hours of successful operation demonstrates the durability and reliability of the F117 engine,” said Bev Deachin, director, P&W Mobility and Surveillance Systems. The F117 is the military version of the company’s PW2000 commercial engine that powers the Boeing 757 passenger aircraft. The C-17 carries four F117 engines, each of which is rated at more than 40,000 pounds of thrust. The Air Force is certifying the F117 to run on a blend of synthetic fuel comprised of 50 percent JP-8 aviation fuel and 50 percent Fischer-Tropsch Kerosene derived from natural gas. Last month a C-17 flew from Washington state to New Jersey with all four of its F117s burning the synthetic fuel mix, marking the first-ever transcontinental flight of an aircraft using FTK.
The Space Force is ready to start using its newest weather satellite after finishing testing and achieving initial operational capability, the service announced April 24.