FARNBOROUGH - The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team is embarking on a series of full F136 development engine tests, capping a successful Phase III pre-System Development and Demonstration (SDD) for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team comprises: GE Transportation - Aircraft Engines in Evendale, Ohio, USA; Rolls-Royce plc in Bristol, England, and Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Beginning this summer and continuing through December, the first fully-assembled F136 development engine, in the Conventional Take-off/Landing (CTOL) configuration, will be ground tested for approximately 200 hours at GE's facility in Evendale, Ohio. The focus will be performance and operability. In early 2005, the same engine will run an additional 200 to 300 hours of endurance tests.
Also, a second development engine in the Short Take-off Vertical Landing (STOVL) configuration will be assembled later this year, and tested in early 2005 at GE's Peebles, Ohio, outdoor test center.
This development work is being funded by the four-year Phase III pre-SDD contract, which runs through 2005. Proposal work by the Fighter Engine Team is underway in anticipation of a new multi-year SDD contract award in 2005 from the JSF program office.
"The next several months of tests are key," said Robert Griswold, general manager for the JSF program at GE. "With this aggressive test schedule, we plan to enter the SDD phase of F136 development with an engine as close to the production configuration as possible."
Based on the current schedule, the Fighter Engine team expects to run the first full SDD engine in 2007, with delivery of the first production F136 engine in 2011.
"The Fighter Engine Team has achieved several years of successful collaboration," said Tom Hartmann, vice president for JSF programs at Rolls-Royce. "Our engine is well suited for its diverse mission requirements on a development timeline which allows it to be adapted to configuration changes to the aircraft."
The F136 will be fully interchangeable and affordable to meet the requirements of all the aircraft variants. Engines will be tested for all JSF variants during Phase III: STOVL for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.K. Royal Navy, CTOL for the U.S. Air Force, and the Carrier Variant (CV) for the U.S. Navy.
GE Transportation - Aircraft Engines, with responsibility for 60 percent of the program, is developing the core compressor and coupled turbine system components, controls and accessories, and the augmentor. Rolls-Royce, with 40 percent of the program, is responsible for the front fan, combustor, stages 2 and 3 of the low-pressure turbine, and gearboxes. GE and Rolls-Royce are jointly developing an integrated high-pressure/low-pressure counter-rotating turbine design. Philips ETG of The Netherlands will provide propulsion system components, and Avio SpA of Italy is responsible for structural components for the low-pressure turbine and will participate in the development of the accessory gearbox. International partner countries are also contributing to the F136 through involvement in engine development and component manufacturing.