GE-Rolls Cleared For More JSF Engine Tests

Aviation Week and Space Technology ^ | 12/6/2010 | Guy Norris

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

General Electric and Rolls-Royce have been granted a two-week breathing space by the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) to continue tests of the endangered F136 Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine.

GE-Rolls says the JPO “has enabled us to find a way to stretch the funding” for continued testing of the F136 until Dec. 17, the date earlier indicated as a possible extension by the development team.

The change was made possible, the JPO says, by the program execution to date. “The JPO has modified the contract accordingly, and there is no indication that a stop-work order will be issued,” GE-Rolls adds.

The JPO extension coincides with the termination of the current continuing resolution (CR) funding the effort, which was itself extended on Dec. 1. The short-term change in the CR allows the U.S. government to operate at 2010 funding levels until around Dec. 18. However, the longer-term survival of the F136 remains dependent on whether it is included in a new omnibus funding bill, now in the works in Congress (Aerospace DAILY, Dec. 2).

Meanwhile, GE Aviation President and Chief Executive David Joyce says his company has asked the U.S. Defense Department to throw down the gauntlet to Pratt & Whitney over the fixed-price terms it is offering for Lot 4 low-rate initial production (LRIP 4) engines based on the terms offered by GE-Rolls. “We invited the Pentagon to take our prices to Pratt and see if they can match them. That’s how the commercial engine business is done,” Joyce says.

[Patton@Bastogne]

GE certainly given that reprieve vis-a-vis the XXX billion donated by U.S. Taxpayers to this “struggling” obmama-whore corporation ...