Pratt & Whitney officials say they will be delivering two F135-PW-100 Joint Strike Fighter engines to the Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold AFB, Tenn., late in October to start conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) qualification tests that will run through January. Thomas Johnson, chief engineer for P&W’s F135 program said the next portion of the development will involve flight clearing for the A-1 first aircraft—scheduled for flight in August 2006.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.