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.