By Jen DiMascio
The failure last week of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) engine blade during proof testing is providing additional fuel for lawmakers who seek to restore funding for an alternate engine.
The Pratt & Whitney [UTX] F135 engine for the short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) variant was undergoing tests in Florida Feb. 4, when “an incident occurred involving a single third stage blade,” according to the JSF Joint Program Office.
“The engine is being inspected and Pratt & Whitney is working in concert with the Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin to determine next steps,” the statement said. Lockheed Martin [LMT] leads the industry team developing the JSF program.
The JPO statement added that because the engine was fully instrumented and broken sections of the blade were recovered, it should help find the cause and stressed that the test was designed to find whether such flaws existed.
A similar problem cropped up during testing last August, according to Bill Gostic, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for F135 engine programs. The company is already on schedule for a qualified fix for the problem by the end of 2008, he said.
The test failure occurred the same day the president released his budget for fiscal year 2009. In that request, the Pentagon nixed a congressional mandate to add funding for development of a second engine for the Air Force’s largest acquisition program.
According to Gostic, the Department’s decision to continue funding solely the F135 demonstrates faith in the company’s ability to execute the program.
By mid-week, lawmakers seized on the latest development for the F135.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee, issued a statement last week stressing that since 1996, the House Armed Services Committee and its Senate counterpart have approved an alternative engine–the General Electric [GE]-Rolls-Royce F136.
“Given a brand new aircraft with yet-to-be-proven technologies, we believe that developing a second, competitive engine makes sense. That recommendation has been rejected by Pentagon leaders year after year,” Abercrombie wrote. “This week’s second failure of the F-35’s test engine, under similar conditions as the previous failure, illustrates the wisdom of the committee’s recommendation.”