GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win

On Friday, Lt. General Michael A. Hough, USMC (Retired) — who was Director/ Deputy Director of the Joint Strike Fighter Program from 1997-2001 — became one of the highest ranking members of the military thus far to call for engine competition for the Joint Strike Fighter program. In a story he penned for aviationweek.com, General Hough shot down the common misconception that there was a competition between Pratt & Whitney’s engine and the one being made by the GE-Rolls Royce team — and that P&W won. Because the critically important JSF program will produce up to 6,000 planes globally, today we’re taking a deeper dive into the case for competition.

Compete the mission: The GE-Rolls Royce engine, seen above during testing last year, is 70 percent complete after having received Congressional funding for 14 years. Pratt & Whitney’s engine, which could become the sole source engine in the $100 billion program if Congress changes course and cuts funding, is $1.9 billion over plan and already is passing along its 40 percent cost overruns in unit production costs to taxpayers. At this rate, it is projected to reach $12.7 billion in total contract overruns. This could take more than 100 aircraft out of the program and represents a serious disruption to the JSF program.

Underscoring the engine reliability, cost, and maintainability improvements that competition brings to the JSF program, Gen. Hough also hit upon the dangerous risk that a sole source engine brings to defense readiness. As the Heritage Foundation explains in its recent analysis: “Should Congress fail to fund the alternate engine, there will be only one type of engine available for a plane — the JSF — that will constitute 90 percent of all U.S. fighters in 2035. Because it is a single-engine plane as opposed to dual-engine, if something goes wrong with the engine, it could lead to a system-wide grounding of every aircraft until the problem is identified and fixed — unless there is an alternative available. Such a scenario constitutes an unacceptably high risk. Further, Congress just passed a new acquisition reform law that demands competition for all major subsystems –including fighter engines.”

Echoing those comments are ones made over the summer on aviationweek.com by former Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner, who is a consultant for GE. He told the news site that as the Wing Commander at Luke Air Force Base in 1979, he personally experienced the problems that resulted from a sole-sourced Pratt & Whitney engine being used to power the F-15 fleet. The military eventually called for a second engine to be developed and established a head-to-head competition for its new F-16s. It resulted in GE developing what later became the dominant engine of the entire fleet, with GE’s alternative engine today powering every combat F-16 in the active U.S. Air Force.

Recalling that his F-15s were flying using only Pratt & Whitney F100 engines — as at the time, there was no second engine source, Gen. Horner told aviationweek.com: “Due to engine design flaws and a lack of spare parts, I had 103 engines stored in a warehouse awaiting parts and a total of 35 holes in aircraft parked on the ramp without engines. Flying our daily schedule was a struggle, with our maintenance folks having to work overtime due to the inexcusable lack of serviceable engines. Also, one of the fixes was to reduce thrust to reduce heat stress on the engines, which reduced F-15 performance — another inexcusable action if we sent those jets into combat. I know firsthand why we needed the so-called Great Engine War that led to the F100/F110 engine competition that served the Air Force and the taxpayers so well.” While acknowledging that “neither P&W nor the GE-Rolls-Royce team can assure us that they will not encounter problems with their engines,” he says that in his experience, “to have two competing engines for the same aircraft is merely prudent.”

The Heritage Foundation says the F-16 engine competition resulted in both GE and P&W “spurring the other to create a better, more efficient, and cheaper engine. Ultimately, the Air Force had more affordable engines ‘with twice the life and much more durability.’ The government’s ultimate award announcement claimed the competition saved the U.S. government $2.5-3 billion over 20 years, resulting in vastly improved engines, significantly enhanced warranties, and an enlarged industrial base and protection against production disruption.’”

The foundation goes on to cite the GAO’s F-16 report, which said the competition yielded “significant cost savings,” and in the first four years when actual costs are compared to the program’s baseline estimate, the results were “nearly 30 percent cumulative savings for acquisition costs; roughly 16 percent cumulative savings for operations and support costs; and total savings of about 21 percent in overall life cycle costs.”

* Read a fact-sheet on the case for engine competition
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* Use our online tools to tell your senator your views about the F136
* Learn the facts about the JSF engine on www.f136.com
* Read Lt. Gen. Hough’s full post on aviationweek.com
* Read Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner’s opinion piece
* Read the JSF recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation
* Read the book The Air Force And the Great Engine War
* Read “House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition”
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made