Shoot me, before the pain returns, because the Great Engine War of Words (GEWW) is revving up again. Next week the Pentagon will release its FY2012 budget request, which likely won't contain money for the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine, and Congress will take up the stalled FY2011 budget, which may or may not end up with money in it for the F136.
In a bid to get out ahead, Pratt & Whitney held a media roundtable in Washington today (Feb 10). The first item of news was that Pratt has a "handshake" with the JSF program office on the low-rate initial production lot 4 fixed-price contract for F135 engines, at a unit cost 16% below the LRIP 3 cost-plus contract.
But the main reason for meeting the press seems to have been to get out ahead of the news that, as part of the F-35 development replan within the Pentagon's 2012 budget, Pratt will receive contracts totalling about a billion dollars for more engines, flight-test support and component improvements.
Acknowledging that GE and Rolls will make as much hay with this news as they can (and they are), Pratt's military engines' president Warren Boley sought to explain what the extra money will pay for.
Of the billion, about $600 million will pay for extra engines and other resources to support flight testing of the F-35, which will now continue to October 2016. Pratt's current contract ends in 2013, said Boley, so more money is needed to support another three years of flight test.
The remaining $400 million or so will pay for a "component improvement program [CIP]-like" effort to improve the performance and durability of the F135. This is certain to have GE/Rolls and opponents of the F-35 rubbing their hands and crying "redesign!"
Boley tried to put a different spin on it. Pratt has finished developing the F135, having achieved initial service release (ISR) with both the CTOL and STOVL engines. Traditionally, he argued, SDD and ISR are followed by a CIP program to drive improvements into the engine. But because F-35 development is now extended into 2016, the "CIP-like" engine improvement effort for the F135 will overlap with the flight-test support phase.
Fair enough, but what will around $400 million over three years pay for in terms of engine improvements? Boley said the component-improvement work will increase the design margins and robustness of the engine, and particularly the STOVL lift system. He cited changes to the shaft-driven lift fan, clutch and roll posts.
Lift-fan changes center on the interstage damper, which sits between the counter-rotating fan stages and damps out vibrations. For the clutch, the issue is heat generated by drag between adjacent plates, which are touching when the clutch is disengaged. For the roll posts, it's overheating of the nozzle actuators. In each case design changes are intended to add margin and reduce maintenance, he said.
But with the F135 already released for service and in production, no amount of explanation is going to prevent accusations that Pratt is getting more money to improve its engine while still in a development program, even as GE/Rolls fight for the funds originally programmed for development of their engine.
"GE says we took a $5 billion development contract and turned it into $7.5 billion," Boley said, answering a question about cost overruns on Pratt'S SDD contract. Two-thirds of the overrun - $1.6 billion - was a result of requirements changes "for which we got new money"m, he said. The other $800 million was down to Pratt's performance - "That's 10% on execution, not a 50% gross overrun," he argued.
But it is still a hefty overrun, and with around a billion dollars more headed Pratt's way, the GEWW debate over the next week or so will get intense. I feel a headache coming on, pass me the anti-screech kit...
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