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In a high-profile public spat with little precedence between the airframe and engine giants, Pratt & Whitney executives are formally accusing Lockheed Martin of prioritizing its own bottom line by seeking an adaptive engine solution for the Joint Strike Fighter.

The U.S. Air Force is getting serious about developing a so-called adaptive engine for its current and future fighter jets and is now putting the money where its mouth is. Five giants in the industry were recently awarded contracts worth a whopping $4.9 billion. General Electric, Pratt &Whitney, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman were awarded contracts worth around $975 million each for the prototype phase of the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion Program. Until now, only GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney were developing engines as part of the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) with the goal of eventually producing...

Recently I spent some time surrounded by people who are smarter than I am, who are braver and more committed to human progress, who know more about science and technology, more about business and industry, and more about budgets and expenditures. This is an experience Congress and the White House should have. Except Congress and the White House have this experience every day. And me too, but at least I know when itÂ’s happening.It was happening with unusual intensity last month in Colorado Springs at the 29th National Space Symposium. This is the biggest and most important annual worldwide gathering...

The exploration team used Remotely Operated Vehicles to find the engines, which sat on the ocean floor, more than 14,000 feet below sea level. Bezos described the experience as "otherworldly," noting the engines' burial site was eerily similar to space: a feeling of microgravity and a seemingly endless black horizon. After decades of exposure to the ocean's harsh conditions, the engines are corroded, and many are missing the original serial numbers. This will make the identification process more difficult. Bezos will work with NASA to restore two of the F-1 engines' hardware and prevent further corrosion. They will eventually go...

A vintage rocket engine built to blast the first U.S. lunar mission into Earth's orbit more than 40 years ago is again rumbling across the Southern landscape. The engine, known to NASA engineers as No. F-6049, was supposed to help propel Apollo 11 into orbit in 1969, when NASA sent Neil Armstrong and two other astronauts to the moon for the first time.

STENNIS SPACE CENTER — A massive steel structure jutting into the sky not far from Interstate 10 is sending the world a message: NASA is taking the next step in hurtling humans back to the moon. Structural work was recently finished on the giant A-3 test stand. Now, things are moving further along in the construction phase. In April, Steel Erector Inc., of Lafayette, La., put the final steel beam on top of the towering test stand and bolted the beam in place, bearing the signatures of project team members. “We’re now 235 feet closer to going back to...

A high-level panel of experts has praised the idea of sending NASA astronauts to visit a nearby asteroid and recommends ambitious robotic missions that will be made possible by next-generation rockets. But the panel also warns that these missions could carry big price tags... When the Ares V rocket makes its first planned flight in 2020, it will be able to lift larger and heavier payloads than any existing vehicle. It will be able to launch objects stretching more than 8 metres across and haul dozens of tonnes of cargo into space on a single flight. For example, it can...

SEATTLE, Feb. 22, 2005 -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] today said development of the 747 Large Cargo Freighter is proceeding according to plan and the modified freighters will be ready to support final assembly of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2007. "We have a top-notch team of engineers working to design what will be one of the most unique airplanes flying," said 787 Vice President of Manufacturing and Quality Scott Strode. "This kind of modification is an engineer's dream. It's an extremely challenging project, and it's essential to the success of the Dreamliner." Boeing announced last week the critical "swing...

Saturn 5 Blueprints Safely in Storage A NASA official has denied a claim made by a book author that blueprints for the mighty Saturn 5 rocket used to push Apollo astronauts to the moon were lost. The denial came in response to a recent story in SPACE.com that reported on a claim John Lewis made in his 1996 book, Mining the Sky, that he went looking for the Saturn 5 blueprints a few years ago and concluded, incredibly, they had been "lost." Paul Shawcross, from NASA's Office of Inspector General, came to the agency's defense in comments published on CCNet...

Pratt & Whitney said Monday it is cooperating with authorities after federal agents arrested a former employee for trying to ship documents to Iran related to the U.S. military's Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The East Hartford defense contractor, the sole manufacturer of the aircraft's engine, declined to comment on how Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, slipped thousands of pages of documents, diagrams, blueprints and technical manuals out the door before he was laid off in August along with hundreds of other employees. Federal authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Thursday before he could board a plane...

Pratt & Whitney officials said the company is cutting 400 positions company-wide, with about half of them coming from the Connecticut workforce. Officials at Pratt & Whitney said it was a tough decision to make, but was necessary to remain competitive. According to Pratt & Whitney officials, those affected will receive severance pay, outplacement help, continuation of group insurance and employee scholar program benefits and other services. The job cuts are effective immediately.

Pratt & Whitney announced in a statement Wednesday that the company will be laying off 80 workers in Connecticut. The company stated that the layoffs are a direct result of the F119 engine program being completed and "lower customer demand for commercial engine overhaul and repair work throughout the company's global repair network." "Pratt & Whitney provided voluntary separation offers as described under the collective bargaining agreement with the International Association of Machinists to minimize the impact of this reduction," the statement said. Workers at the East Hartford and Middletown plants took separation packages, according to a spokesman from the...

Pratt & Whitney officials said the company was eliminating 300 positions nationwide, and 200 of them are coming from Connecticut. The announcement was made Thursday morning. Company officials said they continually assess staffing levels to ensure they are on track with the current business and economic condition. They said when it's necessary, staffing adjustments are required to keep cost structures competitive. As a result, company officials said Pratt & Whitney was reducing its salaried workforce by approximately 300 positions company-wide, effective immediately. After the announcement was made on Thursday, Gov. Dannel Malloy released a statement and said, "When these announcements...

Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud -- in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report. At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments -- and in some cases CRIMINAL FRAUD convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the...

It’s not often the Pentagon’s top testers use the term “screech” to describe a problem with a weapons system, but that’s just what they are calling a problem with Pratt & Whitney’s engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. “The [JSF] program began implementing plans to modify test aircraft to rectify the afterburner ‘screech’ problem, a problem that prevents the engine from sustaining full thrust. These modifications are necessary for the test aircraft to complete envelope expansion at the planned tempo,” said the annual report by Michael Gilmore, director of Operational Test and Evaluation. My colleagues at Defense News first reported...

The Pentagon's declaration this month that it intends to cut back on purchases of Joint Strike Fighters could mean nearly $2 billion in lost engine sales in the next five years for Pratt & Whitney, which is counting on the next-generation aircraft to support its Connecticut factories. That figure is the estimate of an analyst who is an expert on the aerospace industry and its defense programs. Pratt President David Hess downplayed the U.S. defense secretary's announcement that purchases would be cut by 28 percent, which includes 13 fewer of the F-35 fighters in the fiscal year that starts Oct....

Pratt & Whitney has unveiled a new cost-reduction goal as the F135 engine programme nears the end of a seven-year testing phase that was partly marred by cost overruns. The 250th F135 delivered for the Lockheed Martin F-35 will match prices with the less powerful F119 installed on the Lockheed F-22, says Bennett Croswell, P&W vice-president of F135 and F119 engine programmes. Croswell's pledge comes less than 18 months after P&W launched a "war on cost" because the joint programme office expressed concerns about creeping prices. A key concern focused on the F135 programme's learning curve, a statistical model that...

Pratt & Whitney hopes to sign for a fourth batch of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engines within weeks, having accepted a government request to negotiate a fixed-price incentive contract instead of the originally planned cost-plus deal. F-35 prime Lockheed Martin signed a fixed-price incentive contract for the $3.9 billion low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4 of the fighter on Nov. 19. This covers 31 F-35s powered by Pratt F135 engines to be procured under a separate contract. Pratt proposed LRIP 4 prices based on a cost-reduction plan targeted on getting the F135 down to the same cost as the F-22’s...

An important skirmish in the battle over military spending is taking place in this industrial suburb of Cincinnati. At stake is a program to develop an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, a stealthy, supersonic jet supposed to be the backbone of the U.S. fighter fleet for the next three decades. For the past four years, Congress has funded the development of the second engine against the wishes of the Pentagon, which maintains that only a Pratt & Whitney engine should be funded. View Full Image Reuters Congress could decide within days whether to fund a second engine for...

The cost overrun on the main engine for the Lockheed Martin Corp , F-35 fighter jet has grown by $600 million over the past year, despite tough cost-cutting measures by engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp , a Navy document shows. The total cost to complete the Pratt F135 engine is now estimated to be $7.28 billion -- $2.5 billion more than the $4.8 billion initially projected for the engine, according to the document, which was first reported by Aviation Week magazine on its website on Wednesday. That is an increase of $600 million from...