F136 Facts vs. Myths
MYTH: The DoD says it will cost $2.9B 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 bring the total to $1.8B. We are focused on changing the DoD business model by accelerating the engine competition between GE/Rolls-Royce and P&W through our fixed price offer for early-production engines. In this process, we assume the risk for cost overruns. The DoD business case forecasts $747M in “lost learning” for early production JSF engines due to the F136 investment. Through the fixed price offer, this is eliminated. Learning curves are not an entitlement.
MYTH: Terminating the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine 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), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), and the United Auto Workers (UAW).
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.
If you eliminate this competitive engine program, you raise the question of whether more than one U.S. engine supplier will be capable of producing this type of advanced engine in the future.
MYTH: The F136 program is a winner-take-all, zero sum gain.
FACT: This is not how the DoD designed the JSF program. From the beginning, the DoD structured JSF with two engines to compete head-to-head annually for procurement based on price, performance, and support. Given the sheer volume of JSF engine business ($100 billion), the JSF engine competition was never intended as a winner-take-all proposition. The GE/RR and P&W engines will compete head-to-head for decades, both domestically and internationally, with business share driven by the forces of competition. It is based on the highly successful competitive engine model for the F-16, where GE and P&W have fought each other around the globe for engine business since the mid-1980s. The winner: The F-16 and its customers.
MYTH: The F136 investment will not save the taxpayers 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 as a comparison.
That’s $20B in savings – which is equivalent to nearly 200 JSF aircraft, roughly 10% of the USAF JSF program. There are also vast benefits beyond sheer cost - related to operational readiness and contractor responsiveness. GAO further concluded that savings of only 10.1% to 12.6% is needed for competition through the F136 to save taxpayers money.
The JSF engine program desperately needs competition. The Nunn-McCurdy breach and cost overrun on the current JSF engine program have cost the DoD over $2.6B that could have been used to fund higher priority programs. The equivalent of over 20 aircraft have been lost. The F136 will create real cost savings through competition, and these savings will free up funds that can also be used to benefit other defense programs if desired.
In an effort to distort the potential savings through a JSF engine competition, the DoD has even challenged the savings from the F-16 “Great Engine War” of the 1980s. The GAO concluded that the F-16 engine competition yielded nearly 30% cumulative savings in acquisition costs alone. These conclusions were based on Air Force public data.
MYTH: Funding the F136 will lead to a loss of JSF aircraft (50 - 80)
FACT: Just the opposite will happen. Costs from having no competition will eat into the larger defense budget and lead to fewer aircraft. If we fail to have competition over the engine, the higher costs will absorb over $20 billion that otherwise could go to funding critical defense needs over the next 30 years – including additional JSF 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: Unlike the dual-engine F-22 and F/A-18, the JSF is powered by one engine. By 2025, 90% 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 if 90% of the fighter force is a single-engine aircraft with a sole source engine contractor.
MYTH: There was already a JSF engine competition, and P&W won.
FACT: Totally 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. The head of the JSF program in the late 1990s, Gen. Mike Hough, has repeatedly stated that an engine competition was never held. Both P&W’s SDD and Concept Demonstrator contracts clearly state “not competitively procured.”
The history: JSF aircraft designs were competed (between McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin), but the engines were not. Citing commonality with the P&W F119 engine for the F-22, the USAF directed the competing aircraft manufacturers to both use the P&W engine in their concept demonstrator aircraft. 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. P&W disclosed future changes to the engine hot section to accommodate higher temperatures needed to produce more thrust. So, the F135 engine being designed today for the JSF will change.
The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine, the engine developed specifically for the JSF aircraft, benefits from going into development later than the P&W engine. The 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.
The F136 engine will not require a major redesign in the future unless DoD changes the engine specification. The P&W F135 engine will likely require a major redesign in any case. The F136 engine has been designed from the outset to meet the STOVL aircraft variant’s strenuous requirements. The engine has both temperature and airflow margins above the current engine specification. On the other hand, the F135 engine cannot meet the STOVL requirements without operating at higher than design temperatures, which degrades engine life and durability significantly.
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. Because the two engines have common specifications and interfaces with JSF, the pilot won't know which engine is powering the aircraft. Interchangeability results from years of collaboration between P&W and GE/Rolls-Royce to design common external engine features. Also, the competing engines utilize common exhaust and lift systems. This is why P&W representatives recently were at GE’s facility in Cincinnati to observe the successful running of the GE/Rolls-Royce F136.
While interchangeable engines provide operators maximum flexibility, the engines are quite different internally. GE/Rolls-Royce and P&W will aggressively compete head-to-head on performance, durability, reliability, acquisition cost, and support. The benefits of 30+ years of competition will save the JSF program billions of dollars, while driving significant innovation for the aircraft.
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. They require different tools, support equipment and a variety of specially trained personnel to maintain them. The interchangeable P&W F135 and GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engines reduce parts, manpower, and cost. Compared to engines for the F-14B&D, the F136 will require 48% less manpower and 66% less support equipment. The F135 & F136 are 100% common for shipping containers, ground handling support equipment, and hand tools. Neither engine requires a land or ship-based intermediate level maintenance shop or test cell, which significantly lowers manpower requirements. Per JSF guidance, engine maintainers are trained on both the F135 and F136. The footprint required to support both engines is virtually identical on the carrier, and favors the F136 as it requires one less engine module and one less piece of ground handling 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 engine was always to be introduced three to four years after the P&W engine. The early production engines for GE/Rolls-Royce and P&W are aligned to the aircraft program. The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 production is less than 100 engines behind the F135 production for a JSF program designed to exceed 3,000 engines and last more than 30 years. From the initial years of the program, the F136 funding was always funded at significantly lower levels than the F135.
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. The F136 production was aligned to JSF aircraft production before the aircraft schedule delay was announced. On contrast, the P&W F135 development program has delayed the aircraft flight test program.
In addition, the F136 program will not reduce the JSF aircraft production, 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: 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. The tools used in today’s fight in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been measurably different if Congress had not asserted itself years ago. 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 that must continue to receive funding. And the program will easily pay for itself over time.
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. They 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: 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 was 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: A vote for the F136 prevents a $100 billion engine monopoly, preserves a critical engine competition, saves $20 billion over the life of the JSF program, and helps to bring cost control to a program suffering from serious cost overruns. 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 fixed-price offer from GE/Rolls-Royce for early production engine is not unique.
FACT: With this proposal, GE/Rolls-Royce during the early production year would assume all of the cost risk for everything under its control. The government, for example, controls the engine configuration risk. But for those things that GE/Rolls-Royce can control, this fixed price proposal shifts the risk to the GE/RR team. This proposal meets all the tenets of the Defense Acquisition Reform initiative put forth by Congress and implemented by the Administration. Those initiatives never envisioned that a contractor must assume the risk for unanticipated change in configuration later desired by the government.
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.
Strong Performance
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“there was a competition to build the engine for the JSF”
FACT: Absolutely not. The Federal Government has confirmed there was never an engine competition. Only the airframe was competed.
Click here to see Pratt & Whitney's $804M non-competitive Engine Ground and Flight Demonstration contract award for the JSF program.
Click here to see Pratt & Whitney's $4.8B non-competitive F135 Systems Design and Demonstration contract award for the JSF program.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“the leaders of the potential alternate engine teams would suggest that without an alternate engine they might be shut out of the military aircraft engine business. However, these teams already provide engines for multiple military aircraft platforms. In contrast, P&W will only make aircraft engines for the JSF with the closing of the C-17 and F-22 lines. In a sense, the reverse would be more accurate’.”
FACT: Since the JSF will be the only fighter jet produced by the United States and major allies for the next 30 years, a sole source contract for the engines means that the alternate engine manufacturers will be shut out of this market and a major part of the US defense industrial base will disappear.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“do we need competition for an engine that is successful?”
FACT: The aviation media have reported on technical problems with the P&W engine that have been responsible for program delays. Changing course to give a 30-year, $100 Billion, uncontested sole-source contract to Pratt & Whitney (P&W) directly contradicts the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which states: “The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the acquisition strategy for each major defense acquisition program includes measures to ensure competition . . . throughout the life–cycle of such program as a means to improve contractor performance.”
Additionally, the alternate engine program diversifies capability and capacity across the U.S. (and International) industrial base – providing more than 2,500 U.S. direct engineering and manufacturing jobs today growing to more than 4,000 at full production – and ensures that sustained production, maintenance, and availability of critical components are not concentrated in a single provider.
Low Cost
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“continuing to fund it [the alternate engine], would result, over the next five years, in a reduced capacity to build 53 JSF planes”
FACT: On the contrary. The GE/Rolls-Royce (GE/RR) engine is on budget. In contrast, P&W is already over plan and is projected to reach $12.7 billion in total contract overruns. This could take more than 100 aircraft out of the program.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“continuing acquisition of this second engine will cost over $6 billion of taxpayer money”
FACT: Quite the opposite. The GE/RR engine provides taxpayer savings – the program is 70% complete and only requires $850 million for qualification. In fact, GE/RR have offered fixedprice contracting for the program.This means we assume the risk for cost overruns and not the taxpayer. In contrast, P&W is $1.9 billion over plan and already passing along its 40% cost overruns in unit production costs to taxpayers.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“there has never been actual data that proves there was ever any cost savings brought about by the ‘great engine war’ on the F-16s”
FACT: That’s incorrect. A May 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report specifically states that the Great Engine War resulted in a 21% overall cost savings through competition. On the JSF, that would equate to more than $20 billion over the life of the program. Further, according to the GAO, the GE/RR engine will pay for itself with just a 9-11% savings. GE/RR will hold costs by offering fixed-price contracting, consistent with the objectives of a recent White House directive and the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“we are taking money from six C-130Js to fund the competitive second engine for the F-35”
FACT: That’s a misconception. Congress identified that the C-130 had been “double-counted” and took action to correct that duplicative funding.
Better Service
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“the possibility of a fleet-wide grounding due to a single engine is overstated”
FACT: We’ve seen this before. At one point when the F-15 and F-16 aircraft relied on a singlesource P&W engine, significant portions of the fleet were not available for flight duty. More recently, technical issues with the P&W JSF engine have been covered by the industry press. Without an alternate engine, in the event of a JSF fleet-wide grounding, U.S. fighter power could plummet to near zero operational capability.
FLOOR STATEMENT: ...“the [F-135] engine flies on the F-22”
FACT: They are not the same engine. The P&W F135 is advertised as a derivative of the F-22 engine, the P&W F119. However, the P&W F135, as a derivative engine, is costing the taxpayer a projected $6.6B whereas the alternate engine (designed specifically for the JSF) is costing $3.35B.
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Five Reasons to Support the F136
The Fighter Engine Team’s response to Secretary Gates’ call to cancel the F136 competitive engine.
...this is not a question of pork; it is a sincere concern for the success of the F-35 program and for the benefits of competition. 
— Chairman Ike Skelton 