Pratt & Whitney’s F135 initial flight test powerplant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has finished successful runs at NAS JRB Fort Worth, Tex., which is near Lockheed Martin’s final assembly plant, according to a company statement. The company says the runs took place at an indoor facility that had been modified to handle the new engine’s 40,000 pounds of thrust—which makes it “the most powerful fighter engine ever built.”
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.