Pratt & Whitney, a Raytheon Technologies company, announced today the award of a $5.2 billion contract to support the production of F135 engines for F-35 lots 15 and 16, with an option for future lot 17, for all three variants of the aircraft.
The company reported that the lots 15-17 production contract funds the production of 278 F135 engines, with an option to order up to a total of 518 engines. The contract also includes program management, engineering support, production support and tooling. The total contract value for lots 15-17, with options exercised, is approximately $8 billion and will fund more than 418 F135 engines with options for U.S. and international customers.
“This marks a major milestone for the program,” said Jen Latka, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for the F135 program. “This contract award enables us to continue delivering critical 5th Generation propulsion capability to the warfighter at a fair and reasonable cost for the taxpayer.”
See also: F-35 re-engining could be too expensive for the USAF
The struggle to reduce costs
Since the program’s inception, Pratt & Whitney’s efforts in the “war on cost” succeeded in reducing the average unit cost of an F135 by more than 50 percent, contributing to an estimated cumulative savings of $8.1 billion in engines over the life of the program.
Pratt & Whitney is working hard to increase production efficiency by optimizing its supply base and investing in strategic initiatives, such as the new aerodynamic turbine plant in Asheville, North Carolina, to reduce costs wherever possible.
The most powerful
Evolved from the F119 engine that powers the F-22 Raptor, the F135 is the world’s most powerful and advanced fighter engine and is a radical departure in capability from the previous generation of engines.
This includes a substantial increase in thermal management capacity enabling the full spectrum of F-35 weapons and sensor capabilities; a precise and responsive integrated engine control system allowing the pilot to focus squarely on the mission; and an unmatched low observable signature enabling the F-35 to conduct operations in modern Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) environments.
As of December 2022, Pratt & Whitney has delivered more than 1,000 F135 production engines.
