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Some personal history about the Prat & Whitney J58 Engine (SR-71 power plant) from one of the Engineers that helped develop it. All of you Gearheads pay attention at about the 14:45 Time Stamp. The Air Zoo is a world-class, Smithsonian-affiliated aerospace and science museum, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with over 100 air and space artifacts, inspiring interactive exhibits, full-motion flight simulators, indoor amusement park rides, a theater and over 100 education programs!.

United Technologies Corp. ’s jet-engine unit, Pratt & Whitney, received a $1.5 billion contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to build more engines for its F-35 combat jet program. The deal will cover 99 total engines as well as program management, engineering support, spare modules and spare parts. Pratt said Friday that this is the 10th contract with the government for its F135 propulsion systems, which power the fighter jets. Combined with previous awards for the latest batch of engines, the contract totals $1.95 billion, the company said. The new contract for Pratt comes as Lockheed Martin Corp. is...

Boeing aims to broadly replace its 757 model, a top-end narrow-body jet with a single aisle. The new model would try to rewrite airplane economics by being wide enough for two aisles to seat seven people in each row, but able to produce the skintight margins of a smaller single-aisle, six-abreast plane such as the workhorse Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. Airbus calls the project a bluff and says it reflects Boeing's frustration at losing market share to its A321. One of the designs on Boeing's drawing board is an unusually oval-shaped cross-section, rather than a rounder shape typical of...

Mozaffar Khazaee, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who worked for defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, was arrested last week for allegedly trying to smuggle boxes of documents related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the plane expected to be the Pentagon’s next generation fighter jet. He was picked up in New Jersey on his way to Iran.

United Technologies Corp. says it may furlough more than 5,000 workers if the U.S. government shutdown continues into next month. The company said Wednesday that its Sikorsky division, which makes Black Hawk helicopters, would be hit first. … The Hartford, Conn.-based manufacturer said it would halt some defense manufacturing because government inspectors themselves have been furloughed. That leaves it without the necessary federal approvals to make military products. …

UPDATE 1-GE, Rolls Royce drop effort to build F35 engines Dec 2 (Reuters) - General Electric Co and Rolls Royce are dropping their effort to build an alternate engine for Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 joint strike fighter, giving up on what they said could be a $100 billion market. The decision to end their funding of the project beyond 2011, which the companies announced on Friday, is a boost for United Technologies Corp's Pratt & Whitney unit, which builds the engine used in F-35's early production models. The Defense Department earlier this year canceled funding for the second engine. That...

An announced engine selection for Israel's first batch of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters has sparked a new dispute between both rival manufacturers. Pratt & Whitney says the company has received a verbal commitment by Israel to buy the F135 engine to power the first batch of 20 F-35s ordered under a $2.75 billion agreement signed last week. The General Electric/Rolls-Royce team developing the F136 alternate engine claims the selection process remains ongoing. "We fully anticipate we will have an opportunity to compete with the F136" in Israel, GE says. The controversy leaves in doubt the first potential engine selection by...

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) -- A federal judge in Connecticut has sided with a Machinists union in its legal fight to block jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney from moving 1,000 jobs out of the state. U.S. District Judge Janet Hall issued a permanent injunction Friday, stopping the company's plans to shift the jobs to Columbus, Ga., Japan and Singapore.

A KF-16 fighter jet crashed into the West Sea during a training mission on Tuesday. It was the sixth crash of a KF-16 since they were introduced in 1994. The Air Force says the crash rate among its fleet of around 130 KF-16s is low compared to other countries that operate the same aircraft, but since we shall have to use it as our main fighter jet until 2020, it is a source of serious concern. Each KF-16 fighter costs around W40 billion (US$1=W1,381) and the losses from the crashes so far total W240 billion. Fortunately, the two pilots were...