GE And Rolls Royce Must Wait To Hear On Second JSF Engine

(MoneyWatch)  For the last ten years Congress has been funding a program to second source the engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The major argument for this is to make sure that their exist sufficient quantities of engines for this large program as well as to reduce developmental and cost risk. The canceling of this program was one of the Obama Administration's priorities in the 2010 defense budget as it was considered too expensive.

Pratt & Whitney is the prime source for the main engine for the program with GE and Rolls Royce collaborating on the second. Obviously one of the main reasons that Congress kept this program going was to preserve jobs in states like Connecticut and Massachusetts where GE is active. Despite the request by the Administration the House kept funding for the program in both their 2010 Authorization and Appropriation bills. The Senate only left it in their version of the Authorization but in the vote yesterday on the Appropriation bill their was no money included.

This means that the difference will have to be settled in Conference. Now something can be in the Authorization language but not have any money appropriated but not the other was round. This means if the Conference agrees not to fund the engine then no work may be done despite the authorization to do so. GE and Rolls Royce had already voluntarily stopped work on the engine despite a rather large public relations campaign to keep it going. Interestingly a recent incident with the P&W engine during test had in some eyes seemed to reinforce the need for an alternate source but the whole issue has been tied up in politics for several months now.

Interestingly enough one of the reforms proposed for defense acquisition is to try and have competition for major systems as they are developed. In these cases though it would be winner take all as one proposal would be accepted based on cost and value. The F-35 situation is different in that two separate engines are being funded with the thought that both might be used in the aircraft when it entered service. While this does offer risk reduction in that if there are issues with one the other could be used in the majority of the aircraft this approach does not save money necessarily.