RTX‘s Pratt & Whitney has received a more than $1.3 billion cost plus incentive fee contract for the F135 Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) for the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter, DoD said on Monday.
U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason Rueschhoff, 56th Fighter Wing commander, boards an F-35A Lightning II for his final flight on June 14th at Luke AFB, Ariz. (U.S. Air Force Photo)
The contract includes design, analysis, rig testing, engine test preparation, developmental hardware, test asset assembly, air system integration, airworthiness evaluation, and product support planning to mature ECU, the Pentagon said.
In July, Pratt & Whitney said that it had finished preliminary design review on ECU.
Jill Albertelli, president of Pratt & Whitney’s military engines business, said on Monday that the contract is “critical” to allow continued work in the ECU risk reduction phase “with a fully staffed team focused on design maturation, aircraft integration, and mobilizing the supply base to prepare for production.”
In March last year, the Air Force said that it had decided to move forward on ECU for the F-35 and end the service’s Advanced Engine Transition Program (AETP).
As part of AETP, General Electric had proposed its XA100 Tri-Variant Adaptive (TVA) engine to accommodate the envisioned Block 4 weapons and other upgrades for the Lockheed Martin F-35.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.