{"id":190959,"date":"2009-10-11T16:45:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T21:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/10\/11\/f136-alternate-jsf-engine-update\/"},"modified":"2009-10-11T16:45:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-11T21:45:00","slug":"f136-alternate-jsf-engine-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/10\/11\/f136-alternate-jsf-engine-update\/","title":{"rendered":"F136 Alternate JSF Engine Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, the House-Senate Conference Committee agreed to fund the F136 alternate engine for the JSF<\/a>, despite a qualified veto threat from the White House.<\/p>\n

By qualified, I mean that “sources in the WH” have said that they would “recommend a veto,” if the engine were funded, which is quite different from the flat out statement that Obama would veto anything with the F-22 white elephant<\/del> Raptor.<\/p>\n

While the weak veto threat is one of the reasons that supporters of the alternate engine have gained momentum, there is also the fact that Pratt & Whitney is doing back-flips on cost and schedule in order to try to kill the RR\/GE F136 engine, which reinforces the idea that they see a real threat their profit model for the F135 engine.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the idea that the program managers can squeeze P&W just as hard if there is no competitor out in the wings is plainly ludicrous, and the F100\/F110 “engine war” of the 1980s clearly shows that.<\/p>\n

The reason that the DoD is fighting the alternate engine at this point, is because they really<\/span> want the JSF, and even a small amount of money, even if it pays ten fold dividends further out, may push the JSF further down the delay\/cost escalation\/procurement cuts cycle.<\/p>\n

Ashton Carter*<\/sup> pretty much says that flat out when he says that<\/a>, “The crux of the analysis is that the additional upfront costs of a second engine are very clear and very real and the possible savings associated with a hypothesized competition in the future are much harder to estimate.”<\/p>\n

That being said, the development of the F-136 is not going perfectly. The manufacturers just had to halt testing following the discovery of damage to the turbine<\/a>, described as “nicks and dings”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, the House-Senate Conference Committee agreed to fund the F136 alternate engine for the JSF, despite a qualified veto threat from the White House. By qualified, I mean that “sources in the WH” have said that they would “recommend a veto,” if the engine were funded, which is quite different from the flat out statement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1038,998,1008,1020,1128,1173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-defense-procurement","category-legislation","category-propulsion","category-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}