Defence Appropriations Bill Continues Funding For F136 Engine Development

Rolls-Royce welcomed continued Congressional support for competition as the US House and Senate approved funding for the F136 engine program, and President Barack Obama signed it into law.

The recently passed Appropriations Bill includes $465 Million in FY 2010 for the F136 engine, allowing competition to continue in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) propulsion program. This marks the 15th consecutive year that Congress has supported competition in this key program.

This important vote re-affirms the benefits of competition, avoiding a $100 billion, single-source engine monopoly without a competitive selection process.  “Funding the F136 represents a victory for competition that will benefit the military customer for decades to come,” said Dan Korte, Rolls-Royce President - Defence. “Prior engine competitions have demonstrated cost savings of 21 percent – which translates to projected savings of $20 billion or more over the lifetime of the JSF program.”

The F136 engine, being developed in a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and GE, supports approximately 2,500 jobs at the Rolls-Royce manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, at GE and throughout its US supply chain. With the current funding, the program will be approximately 85 percent complete, with the first production F136 engines scheduled to be delivered in 2012.

The company says the F136 program has met all major milestones and the engine has performed as expected during testing, meeting targets for thrust and efficiency. The program has totaled more than 550 hours of testing since the System Development and Demonstration contract began in 2005.

In September, the Fighter Engine Team submitted an unsolicited fixed-price contract proposal -- a unique approach for early F136 production engines that would move significant cost risk from taxpayers to the companies. Fixed-price contracting is one of the key objectives of the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009.

The first complete new-build F136 engine began testing earlier this year – a month ahead of schedule – under the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) contract with the US Government Joint Program Office for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. GE and Rolls-Royce expect the engine program will ramp up to multiple test engines in 2010 and top well over 1,000 hours of testing by year end.

FMI: www.rolls-royce.com