On this evening’s broadcast of ABC’s World News, and in an accompanying story on ABC News’ website, reporter Brian Ross questions whether the Joint Strike Fighter program needs the competitive engine being made by GE-Rolls Royce – calling it a “pork barrel project” and asking whether it’s a “government boondoggle.” While ABC presented the broad arguments in favor of funding the GE/RR F136 engine, the network left out key facts. We’d like to set the record straight.
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Although the televised report noted that spending on the JSF engine program will ultimately reach $100 billion (the online version did not), the stories omitted the fact that 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 GE/RR F136 program. Without the competing GE/RR F136 engine, a sole-source monopoly will be handed to a single contractor, Pratt & Whitney, which already has $2.6 billion in cost overruns on its JSF engine.
The report incorrectly claimed that the GE-Rolls Royce engine “lost out in the initial Pentagon competition” to be the engine supplier. That is completely untrue. As recently as May 19, during a House Subcommittee hearing, John Roth, comptroller for the Department of Defense Program/Budget, agreed that there was never an engine competition for JSF. Rather, JSF aircraft designs were competed (between McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin), but the engines were not. Citing commonality with Pratt & Whitney’s F119 engine for the F-22, the U.S. Air Force directed the competing aircraft manufacturers to both use the P&W engine in their concept demonstrator aircraft. Subsequently, 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.
The report also left out the independent Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) conclusion that the 21 percent cost benefit from a JSF engine competition will translate into $20 billion in savings — the equivalent of nearly 200 JSF aircraft.
The report also implied that that the government will need to spend $3 billion more on the project. However, GE/Rolls-Royce only needs another $1B to complete F136 engine development. Between now and 2017, we estimate additional costs associated with tooling and support infrastructure will bring the total to $1.8B.
While the ABC News story noted that Congress has been in favor of the GE/RR engine – and has funded it since the mid-1990s — the report left out the fact that the F136 development program is more than 70 percent complete. In fact, the engine will fly on the JSF aircraft next year and will be poised to compete head-to-head with Pratt & Whitney’s engine.
The report also quotes a U.S. Navy Admiral who says having two different engines and their spare parts on aircraft carriers will cause a problem with space onboard. In fact, the Navy today operates four different fixed-wing aircraft engines on the carrier with little or no commonality in terms of machinery, tools or support equipment. The interchangeable P&W F135 and GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engines reduce parts, manpower, and cost. Compared to engines for the F-14 B&D, the F136 will require 48 percent less manpower and 66 percent less support equipment.
The reports also implied that members of Congress who support the competing engine are doing so because of jobs located in their states – with Michigan being one of the states singled out. GE’s decision to increase the number of aviation jobs in Michigan is part of our broader commitment to draw on the high-tech talent pool available in the economically hard-hit state. GE’s job creation efforts include non-aviation related R&D, manufacturing, and information technology efforts.
* Read our story from earlier today: “GE and the Joint Strike Fighter: Facts vs. myths”
Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
“Fixed price offer will slash Joint Strike Fighter costs”
“GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win”
“Gen. Hough: JSF engine competition ‘never happened’”
“House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition”
* Learn more about the arguments in favor of engine competition on the JSF
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* Read Lt. Gen. Hough’s full post on aviationweek.com
* Read Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner’s opinion piece
* Read the JSF recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation