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Connecticut Mirror | Lisa Hagen December 5, 2023 Pratt & Whitney will be the sole provider of the F135 military jet engine, following a decades-long push by Connecticut’s congressional delegation to secure funding and protect jobs in the state. The Department of Defense announced this week it is awarding multiple follow-on contracts that will extend […]

Air and Space Forces Magazine | John Tirpak November 28, 2023 The F-35 Joint Program Office has officially announced plans to issue multiple sole-source contracts to Pratt & Whitney to upgrade the fighter’s F135 engine—a widely expected move after Pentagon officials indicated they would do so earlier this year instead of developing an entirely new

The Gold Institute for International Strategy | John C. Wohlstetter and Travis Korson October 11, 2023 A Congressional Research Service report (RL30563, issued May 2, 2022) tallies the total F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program at 2,456 aircraft. Including development costs, this works out to $2.4 trillion, the largest defense aircraft procurement ever. From

Newsweek | John ‘Wolf’ Wagner September 18, 2023 One historical challenge facing the Defense Department is getting parts and supplies. The more complex the systems, the more complicated it gets. Well, there is some hope with the recent F-35 engine upgrade decision. To recap, back in March the Air Force decided that due to budget

Defense Opinion | Gary Tobey September 12, 2023 The geographic realities of any potential future conflict all point to the overarching need for America and its global military partners to be able to control the airspace in any situation. Strategic threats in the Indo-Pacific underscore the need to be able to project air power from

Stars and Stripes | Terron Sims II September 6, 2023 The U.S. military is the strongest in the world, but the physical size of our military is not what has positioned us as the most powerful in the world. The generational strength of the U.S. military is due to our brave men and women, superior

Aviation Week | Staff July 18, 2023 Congress may be “throwing money away” if it continues to fund the U.S. Air Force’s Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) development without committing to re-engine the Lockheed Martin F-35, the service’s top official says. In the House of Representatives’ fiscal 2024 policy bill, which passed… Read the full

Flight Global | Ryan Finnerty July 12, 2023 Engine maker Pratt & Whitney (P&W) is moving forward with plans to upgrade powerplants on the USA’s fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters. The Raytheon Technologies subsidiary received an early $66 million contract from the US Department of Defense (DoD) to support initial activities for the

The Hill | J.D. HayworthApril 17, 2023 John Paul Jones, the legendary naval commander in America’s Revolutionary War, is credited with the famous words: “I have not yet begun to fight!”  And as the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 247th year of independence, Jones would find that a variation on his famous words remains quite

The Washington Post | Raytheon TechnologiesApril 17, 2023 There’s a complex debate surrounding the future of the F-35’s engine, Pratt & Whitney’s F135. To maintain air dominance, the entire F-35 platform undergoes periodic rounds of modernization. The pending modernization effort requires engine upgrades to fully enable the new aircraft and weapons capabilities. The question is how

POLITICO | Raytheon TechnologiesApril 6, 2023 The U.S. Air Force has chosen to upgrade the fighter jet’s original and current engine – the Pratt & Whitney F135 – rather than develop an entirely new one. The decision, announced as part of President Biden’s budget proposal and now under debate in Congress, “signals that the Department

Aviation Week | Brian EverstineMarch 28, 2023 While the U.S. Air Force would have wanted other services to help shoulder the cost of a full engine replacement for all variants of the Lockheed Martin F-35, it simply was not possible, the service’s top civilian official says, even as lawmakers press the service to reconsider moving ahead