Engines from GE Aerospace and RTX’s Pratt & Whitney have cleared the Air Force’s “Detailed Design Reviews” for the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion program, paving the way for the engine-makers to build prototype ground demonstrators, the two companies announced separately. The...
GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney received matching $3.5 billion contracts to prototype their versions of the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion engine this week, and the CEO of Pratt’s parent company, RTX, said things are looking up for the military engine business, even if the platform ...
There are a lot of new demands on the government-industry propulsion enterprise—ranging from exquisite new fighter engines to cheap, off-the-shelf powerplants for drones—that will require sustained support, experts said.
Pratt & Whitney and the F-35 Joint Program Office have completed the preliminary design review of the Engine Core Upgrade of the fighter’s F135 engine, the company said this week, adding that the ECU is “on schedule and exceeding expectations.” Pratt is a subsidiary of ...
The Air Force wants to spend $1.3 billion to finish designing two competitive engines to power the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, budget documents show. They say the designs are well along, and the timing of the request indicates production could begin by 2028.
The engines for the hyper-secret Next Generation Air Dominance fighter will be a different size than the adaptive engines developed for an F-35 upgrade, but many of the technologies will “port over” to the new powerplant, the Air Force’s propulsion czar told reporters Aug. 1.
“The F-35 is the most advanced fighter yet built, but decisions and compromises imposed on it more than a decade ago continue to push up its cost, decrease its reliability, limit its performance, and constrain its ability to exploit new technologies. For fighter pilots of ...
The F-35 Joint Program Office is sticking by its endorsement of Pratt & Whitney’s Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) for the F135 powerplant, saying the improvement will meet all the fighter’s future needs for power. But it declined to weigh in on the increasingly combative war ...
F-35 maker Lockheed Martin thinks the Pentagon should reverse course and pursue the more expensive but technologically advanced Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) for future versions of the fighter, rather than the more incremental F135 Engine Core Upgrade chosen by the Air Force in its ...
The Air Force couldn't find a place for Adaptive Engine Technology Program powerplants on the F-35 in its fiscal 2024 budget request, opting to harvest what it can from its $4 billion investment and press on to the Next-Generation Advanced Propulsion program.
The looming decision on the future of the F-35’s engine—Pratt & Whitney’s F135—has fostered plenty of debate, with some suggesting the F135 should be completely replaced with a new engine through the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP), while others say integrating a new adaptive engine into...
Pratt & Whitney has developed a fix for F135 engines afflicted with “harmonic resonance,” which should only take 30 minutes per affected engine to correct, company officials said. Deliveries of the engine, which powers the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, resumed Feb. 18 after nearly ...
