Extra Engine for F-35 Fighter

[Bill Greenwood]

It is often good to get info form different perspectives about the same issue.

One such may be the engines for the new F-35 Fighter. They are built by Pratt 7 Whitney now. Of cousre this is a large and lucrative contract, many $$$$$ flowing to the company and area and employees, and stockholders etc. You can imagine the amount of money spent to lobby on this, lot's of coctails and lobster served over this one, I am sure.
Of course, others see the cash cow and want to get some of it also.

The main such other is GE and Rolls Royce, who want to build a second engine, a second source.
I don't know much about this, but it seems redudndant and unaecessary to me, especially in these times of budget and economy problems. Is it routinely done, or was it done for other planes?

The twist is that the Sec of Defense Gates does not want to spend on this extra engine, but Congress keeps pushing it. So now the news today says Gates may be suing his own govt to stop the contract for the second version.
I got this write up from a Yahoo financial site, as I own G E stock. So as a stockholder of GE , it would benefit me to spend on this extra contract, but as a taxpayer it seems to be just a wastefull boondoggle.

Hey, if it was up to me, I'd have Rolls Royce get back to building new Merlins!

[warbird1]

I agree with you Bill. To make the F-35 a twin engine airplane would cost a lot of money for re-engineering the fuselage to accommodate the extra engine. I say, leave the F-35 as a single engine aircraft! I'm sure it's single-engine performance is good enough.

[51fixer]

I agree with you Bill. To make the F-35 a twin engine airplane would cost a lot of money for re-engineering the fuselage to accommodate the extra engine. I say, leave the F-35 as a single engine aircraft! I'm sure it's single-engine performance is good enough.

I believe they are talking a second source for the single engine to be used. This won't change the F-35 into a dual powerplant aircraft.
In the past some a/c have suffered from the only contractor building parts as a sole provider creating issues with development and how long the part lasts in use. Keeping the maximum number of units ready for action is the bottom line.
Some feel continued competition in this case will truly allow the best engine to be produced.

[ArtS]

Two engine designs for the same plane. The designs are competing. It is my understanding that the fuselage will accept either design (warbird 1, the F-35 is a single engine plane, the question is whether to have two engines availible to power it).

Reasons why 1 is better than 2:
- Only need to train pilot and crew for one engine;
- Less development cost - only designing one engine (unfortunately, I believe the GE engine is already running so the savings will be reduced).

Resons why 2 is better than 1:
- Estimated purchase cost will be 20% lower over the life of the fleet due to competition (govt.'s own estimate);
- Redundancy - if a flaw is discovered in one engine design, the entire fleet will not be grounded.

Regards,

Art S.

[ArtS]

By the way, all of our new planes are very slow as compared to the century series. We're barely clearing Mach 1 now because of all of the fancy stuff.

On the plus side, they will soon be able to run on vegitable oil (only half joking on this one...)

Regards,

Art S.

[Bill Greenwood]

Arts, they did already test fly a jet, think F-18 on a 50 50 mixture of jet fuel and biofuel. They need the jet fuel part to keep some of the parts happy ,like seals and on rings.

Yes, I only meant a second source for the engine, not to convert it to a twin engine plane, just whatever the design is now.

I don't see any reason why P&W would not be able to produce parts in the future, and not need GE or Rolls. Part of the lucrative nature of these contracts is the service and parts provisons stretching far into the future.

[tom d. friedman]

By the way, all of our new planes are very slow as compared to the century series. We're barely clearing Mach 1 now because of all of the fancy stuff.

On the plus side, they will soon be able to run on vegitable oil (only half joking on this one...)

Regards,

Art S.

regarding the f -35's speed to the century series family average speed, please elaborate.

[bdk]

C-17 is the first military aircraft fully qualified to run 100% on bio-fuels.

You may save 20% on per-engine cost with competition, but then you need infrastructure to support maintenance and repair of two engine types (including tech orders & training). 80% + 80% = 160%!

If the Pratt turns out to be a dud, that is a problem. Most airliners have at least two engine choices available just because there are so many customers and each has contracts with their preferred manufacturer. There almost was a 3rd engine choice available for the MD-11 way back when.

All your eggs in one basket with engines is a risk, but then aren't all your eggs in one airframe a risk too?

BTW, if there is a flaw in the engine it will get fixed. If there was a second choice of engine, there would not be enough spares to replace 1/2 the fleet so it wouldn't help.

[RSpivey]

The military actually did this with the F16. All the Block 30/40/50/60 aircraft have a GE Engine and the 32/42/52/62 aircraft use a P&W engine. One has more thrust the other weighs less. However, while this satisfies both GE and P&W for getting equal contracts, it also means design changes for the aircraft, the GE engine is larger and IIRC the intake is slightly larger as well. So you can't simply put a PW in a Block 50 F-16 that was built to use a GE motor. So you still have an aircraft that only one manufacturer supports, there is no cross platform support.

In my opinion FWIW, they should have used GE Engines in the F35.

[The Inspector]

A large part of the overall issue is the fact that the GE engine is/will be built in the Congressional district of a fellow with a deep tan and is a chain smoker.

[RobC]

This is one that is bi-partisan and thus can be considered apolitical. The Wall St. Journal had a front page story on this travesty about a month ago. This is clearly a waste of our money. The president of GE wrote in to defend the decision to have his company develop a new (second) engine and just made GE look worse. There was clearly no practical justification. "just in case P & W runs into problems." As if the DOD had never procured an airplane with one engine design before. This is the same company, and the same process, that guarantees you will not be able to buy a plain 100 watt light bulb in a couple of years. I am buying scads of them and they are cheap. Suggest you do too. In two years, thanks to GE and some corrupt Congresspeople, you will be paying 5 bucks for a light bulb. Way to go, GE!

[Bill Greenwood]

Rob, I think you are off target in blaming GE for the new type light bulbs. While they are a major supplier, other companies, Phillips, Sylvainia also make bulbs. I don't think the decision to change is just up to GE.

[Bill Greenwood]

Inspector, aha. I sort of suspected some link, I even researched where P & W was located, but it didn't give me a clue, that the "Tan Man" had a finger in the pie. It's enough to bring tears to your eyes.

[The Inspector]

............and, cue Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin 'Cry Baby'............................................

[Bill Greenwood]

The tan man lost his first vote today on this. Don't know if he shed any tears. My GE stock is down a bit after the vote.