Slowing the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters because of the automatic government budget cuts that took effect last week could cause the price of its engines to rise and possibly offset the gains that have been made at reducing cost in recent years, the maker of the engines said yesterday.
Bennett Croswell, the president of Pratt & Whitney’s military engine division, said that company and its suppliers would likely have to take a second look at the proposal for the sixth limited production run of the aircraft and make adjustments related to any reduced buys.
“We have made a proposal for a certain number of engines, and if that number of engines gets adjusted then we will have to re-propose,” Croswell said.
Pentagon officials have repeatedly warned that the forced budget cuts known as sequestration could prompt the military to scale back acquisition programs, including the F-35. Croswell said the company managed a 5 percent cost reduction between the fourth and fifth low-rate initial production runs (LRIP). But sequestration and fewer airplanes could impact that improvement.
“Potentially it could reduce the reduction,” Croswell said.
Croswell held a conference call with reporters to address two recent groundings for the aircraft due to engine-related problems.
The Pentagon issued a fleet-wide grounding of the F-35s Feb.21 after the discovery of a 0.6-inch crack on an engine turbine blade on a test aircraft at Edwards AFB, Calif. That suspension was later lifted after it was investigated and deemed to be an isolated problem.
Croswell said the crack resulted from the heavy activity of the test plane that caused temperatures to rise for extended periods of time beyond the thermal specifications of the turbine blade, a notion he referred to as “thermal creep.” He said the test plane, the AF-2, had a heavy workload and because it’s a test aircraft, it was being pushed well beyond the limits of what would take place in operational F-35.
“If you look at an operation jet and how it flies, it does not fly a regime like these flight test aircraft do,” he said. He said, however, the crack did provide some “new learning to set criteria to prevent this from happening in the future.”
The other suspension involved the Marine Corps version of the aircraft, the F-35B, which features a short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) capability, and took place in January. The grounding stemmed from faulty crimping on a fueldraulic line in the plane’s vectoring propulsion system specific to the F-35B. Flying resumed in mid-February after inspections and replacements of the flawed fuedraulic lines.
Croswell said new procedures were put in place to improve the quality control inspections and manufacturing of the lines. The fueldraulic lines are supplied by Stratoflex.
Pratt & Whitney is a division of United Technologies [UTX].