GE and the Joint Strike Fighter: Facts vs. myths

On May 19, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee voiced its support for defense acquisition reform by voting to continue funding the competing engine for the Joint Strike Fighter being made by GE and Rolls-Royce. However, there continues to be confusion over the facts of the F136 engine program, which has led to calls for a presidential veto of the defense bill that contains the funding. We’d like to set the record straight. Without competition from the GE-Rolls Royce engine, a $100 billion sole-source monopoly will be handed to a single contractor, Pratt & Whitney, which already has $2.6 billion in cost overruns on its JSF engine. According to the Government Accountability Office, at least $20 billion could be saved over the life of the JSF program with the GE-Rolls Royce F136 engine.

High stakes: Potential production of the F-35 for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and international customers can reach 5,000 to 6,000 aircraft over 30 years. The F-35 is designed to replace the AV-8B Harrier, A-10, F-16, F/A-18 Hornet and the United Kingdom’s Harrier GR.7 and Sea Harrier, all of which are currently powered by GE or Rolls-Royce. F136 engine development is being led at GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio — a Cincinnati suburb — and at Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis, Indiana.

MYTH: The Department of Defense says it will cost $2.9 billion to finish the F136 engine.
FACT: The business case is deeply flawed. GE/Rolls-Royce needs another $1B to complete F136 engine development. Between now and 2017, we estimate additional costs associated with tooling and support infrastructure will bring the total to $1.8B. We are focused on changing the DoD business model with our fixed price offer for early-production engines. With this proposal, GE/Rolls-Royce would assume all of the cost overrun risk for everything under its control during early production. This proposal meets all the tenets of the Defense Acquisition Reform initiative put forth by Congress and implemented by the Administration.

MYTH: Terminating the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 will save 5,000 American jobs.
FACT: Terminating the competitive engine program will cost thousands of U.S. jobs. About 2,500 U.S. jobs depend upon the F136 development program today and 4,000 U.S. jobs when it reaches the production phase. It’s no wonder the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine has been endorsed by The International Union of Electrical Workers—Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). This myth distorts figures announced by Lockheed-Martin in 2001 that 5,000 jobs would be created in the U.K. through the production of the F-35 aircraft (not just the engine), which is an international program with 8 international partners by design.

MYTH: The F136 investment will not save you money.
FACT: The JSF engine program will ultimately reach $100B, and a decades-long engine competition needs only to generate a 1 percent to 2 percent cost benefit to recoup the remaining dollars needed to complete the F136 program. Twice, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has concluded that it anticipates a 21 percent benefit from a JSF engine competition, using past experience from the F-16 “Great Engine War” competition in the 1980s as a comparison. That’s $20B in savings — which is equivalent to nearly 200 JSF aircraft. The GAO concluded that the F-16 engine competition yielded nearly 30 percent cumulative savings in acquisition costs alone. The GAO further concluded that savings of only 10.1 percent to 12.6 percent is needed for competition through the F136 to save taxpayers money.

MYTH: The F136 leads to a loss of JSF aircraft (50 to 80).
FACT: Just the opposite will happen. Costs from having no competition will eat into the larger defense budget and lead to fewer aircraft. In addition, the benefits of competition will increase the international demand for the JSF, just like it did for the F-16. Higher volume is a key to F-35 affordability.

MYTH: One engine supplier for JSF does not create operational risk.
FACT: By 2025, 90 percent of the U.S. fighter force will be F-22 and JSF aircraft. Never in our history have we been dependent on two fighter aircraft with no other fleets to provide alternatives. Despite advancements in engine design and technology, the JSF will push the limits on materials, pressure ratios and operating temperatures. This increases the technical and operational risks, which will be exacerbated with a sole source engine contractor.

MYTH: There was already a JSF engine competition, and P&W won.
FACT: Completely untrue. As recently as May 19, during a House Subcommittee hearing, John Roth, comptroller for DoD Program/Budget, agreed that there was never an engine competition for JSF. Rather, JSF aircraft designs were competed (between McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin), but the engines were not. Citing commonality with Pratt & Whitney’s F119 engine for the F-22, the U.S. Air Force directed the competing aircraft manufacturers to both use the P&W engine in their concept demonstrator aircraft. Subsequently, Congress recognized in 1996 that an engine competition for the JSF was never held, and it authorized development funds to GE/Rolls-Royce with the intention of introducing a competing engine four years into the aircraft program.

MYTH: The P&W engine alone can serve the JSF needs.
FACT: P&W has confirmed a future technology effort to increase its F135 engine thrust by 5 percent by spending more government money — on top of the more than $7B being spent to develop the F135. So, the F135 engine being designed today for the JSF will change. Conversely, The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine was resized in 2005 to reflect growing demands of the F-35 aircraft. In fact, the F136 can grow in thrust by 5 percent without an engine redesign. The F136 has a clear thrust advantage.

MYTH: The JSF engines are not interchangeable and the aircraft will have to be redesigned to accommodate the F136.
FACT: The competing JSF engines from GE/Rolls-Royce and P&W are fully interchangeable. Simply put, you can pull out the engine from the JSF aircraft and quickly replace it with the engine from the competing supplier.

MYTH: The Navy won’t have room for two engines on their carriers. That alone should make us eliminate the F136 program.
FACT: Today, the Navy operates four different fixed-wing aircraft engines on the carrier with little or no commonality in terms of machinery, tools or support equipment. The interchangeable P&W F135 and GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engines reduce parts, manpower, and cost. Compared to engines for the F-14 B&D, the F136 will require 48 percent less manpower and 66 percent less support equipment

MYTH: The F136 engine is four years behind and will delay fielding the aircraft.
FACT: From onset of the JSF engine program established in 1996, the GE/RR was always to be introduced three to four years after the P&W engine.

MYTH: We don’t need the F136 because Secretary Gates doesn’t want it.
FACT: We’ve learned from experience there are times Congress should sensibly assert its own prerogative. For example, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have become almost indispensible on today’s battlefield, yet years ago DoD wanted to terminate Predator development. The program survived only due to Congressional insistence. DOD wanted to terminate the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft 20 years ago. Again, Congress recognized the force multiplier the V-22 would be in combat and voted to continue funding the program’s development and production. Today, the V-22 is providing greatly enhanced battlefield support. The JSF competitive engine is another example of a worthy program.

MYTH: If the JSF engines are competed, other systems on the aircraft should be as well.
FACT: The F-35 engines represent the largest subsystem on the aircraft. The also represent the most critical system on the aircraft for survivability. After the aircraft is in service, the maintenance and overhaul of the engines represent a growing portion of the aircraft systems’ overhaul costs. Competing engines for a program so large (3,000+ JSF aircraft are expected to be produced) will save costs and greatly reduce operational risk.

MYTH: Procuring the F136 will delay Air National Guard deliveries.
FACT: Procuring the F136 does not delay JSF aircraft deliveries at all. The DoD’s recently announced schedule slip to the JSF program to allow for additional flight-testing is not at all related to the F136 development, which is on schedule. In addition, the F136 program will not reduce the production of JSF aircraft, as is being claimed by P&W. Savings through the JSF engine competition could reach $20B over the life of the program — thus creating funds for additional aircraft.

MYTH: The international JSF partners are neutral about competing JSF engines.
FACT: Not only do the international partners want an engine choice, the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the International Partners in late 2006 assured them that they would have an engine choice. The DoD committed to provide competing JSF engines.

MYTH: The fighter engine industrial base in the U.S. won’t be downgraded if the F136 program is cancelled.
FACT: The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) — the DoD entity that assesses industrial base issues — disagrees. DCMA studies from 2006 and 2008 highlight the probability of serious impact on the large fighter engine industrial base if the F136 engine was terminated. They show that GE’s current fighter engine programs (F110 and F414) wind down after 2010, and there is insufficient funding/workload to sustain GE’s fighter engine design capability if F136 was terminated. There is no other program planned or in development in the near term that would allow GE to keep its large fighter engine team together if the F136 is terminated.

MYTH: A vote for the F136 will create political fallout.
FACT: The F136 has received 15 years of bi-partisan support. Champions of this program represent every region of the country, from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans. If the F136 is cancelled, the government will have wasted $3 billion on developing the engine, and receive zero benefit, which carries its own political fallout.

MYTH: The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 testing program is not going well.
FACT: The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 test program is on schedule, and poised to power JSF test aircraft next year. The engine is exceeding all performance goals and running just as we expected in terms of thrust, temperatures, and operability. Earlier this year, we completed a highly successful test phase on the engine’s afterburner and control system, and are now running a second engine. By year’s end we expect to run 1,000 hours on six test engines. The test program is moving full steam ahead.

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
“Fixed price offer will slash Joint Strike Fighter costs”
“GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win”
“Gen. Hough: JSF engine competition ‘never happened’”
“House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition”

* Learn more about the arguments in favor of engine competition on the JSF
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* 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