F135 Propulsion Status

Found these stats on the F135 at www.F135engine.com

Progress To Date:
F135 Production Engines Delivered: 23
F135 Powered Flights: 935
F135 Flight Hours: 1436
VERTICAL LANDINGS: 111

I had no idea there were so many verticle landings!

enginesrus wrote:..F135 Production Engines Delivered: 23..

28 are required to meet delivery of LRIP 1&2 to Eglin, this year. When will the 5 that required re-assembly be deliverd to Ft. Worth?

Neptune, where are you getting these rumors of required re-assembly? Would love to hear the source for such propaganda....

Is this the incident you are speaking of?

"Pratt & Whitney confirms that a "small number" of F135 test and production engines have been replaced with spares since March. The replacements were ordered after a ground test engine was found to be mis-assembled after an overhaul, Pratt & Whitney says. Further checks identified the same problem on other test and production engines.

"These engines are being replaced by spare engines on site in Fort Worth, with no impact to the F-35 flight test programme," the company says.

However, Venlet says the engine problem has caused a short-term interruption to the new manufacturing plan.

"The engines are getting there and they are recovering to schedule," Venlet says. "The shop operating plan has some resilience in it - a few engine changes. We can't be changing every engine. So [the manufacturing schedule] will drop off but I think we'll see it recover."

Venlet's predecessor, Brig Gen David Heinz, also complained about quality control issues on the F135 engine, telling reporters in July 2009 that although individual turbine stages met quality specifications, the combined stack of stages in a completed engine did not meet tolerances for quality.

P&W officials have said that the "stack" problem cited by Heinz was corrected long ago.

The F135 is now the only F-35 engine after the Department of Defense terminated the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine on 25 April."

oh, and before we start bashing P&W, let me remind you of "other" engines that have had these kind of issues..3 hours into an "endurance" test...


"General Electric and Rolls-Royce are focusing on manufacturing records as they investigate the causes of an incident that forced the shutdown of an F136 development engine on Sept. 23.

The shutdown was triggered when the F136 endurance engine, 008, “experienced an anomaly at near-maximum fan speed,” the GE-Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team says. “Initial inspection revealed damage to airfoils in the front fan and compressor area. The engine is currently being disassembled for a thorough investigation,” it adds.

The test incident comes at a potentially perilous time for the F136, which is once again struggling for survival in the continued debate in Washington over funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine. Despite a lack of explicit funding by Senate appropriators for the F136, the GE-Rolls-Royce team remains quietly confident the engine will once again prevail as House and Senate appropriators and their staff negotiate unresolved budget items for Fiscal 2011.

The Obama administration has promised to veto any bill prolonging the F136, although the House already is on record challenging that threat.

The development engine shutdown occurred 3 hr. into a mechanical “break-in” run, indicating that the issue is likely related to an assembly or set-up problem linked to this specific engine rather than a deeper, systemic failure. Although GE-Rolls-Royce is not commenting on specific focus areas, the statement points to the front fan in the Rolls-Royce-led fan module as the chief suspect. Disassembly and inspection will probably be undertaken relatively quickly, as the endurance engine was not fully instrumented like other development units, GE-Rolls-Royce says.

Although acutely aware of the possible political damage to its funding campaign, GE-Rolls-Royce is drawing a crumb of comfort from the circumstances surrounding the isolated nature of the incident, which occurred in GE’s facility in Evendale, Ohio. “Engine 008 was shut down in a controlled manner,” the Fighter Engine Team says, adding it “is researching the manufacturing and assembly records for engine 008. The Fighter Team has run several builds of five F136 development engines for more than 1,000 hours since early 2009 without experiencing this issue.”

The team also says it “promptly inspected two other development engines now running in the program and neither engine exhibited similar distress. Prior builds were also inspected, with no findings.”

Meanwhile, tests on the other engines, 005 at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., and 007 at GE in Evendale, are continuing, GE-Rolls-Royce says. Development engine 009 is in assembly and is expected to begin testing by year-end. This will lead to a total of six development engines running in 2010. Flight-test engine 041 also is in production, slated for a planned first flight on the F-35 in 2011.

The F136 test problem follows a number of issues in 2009 that included engine damage from ingested test equipment and a loose nut. The latter incident led to the redesign of a diffuser that directed air into the combustor. Tests also uncovered the need for a bearing redesign."

enginesrus wrote:..where are you getting these rumors of required re-assembly? .."

It is in a memo from P&W, no bashing anyone.

When are the last five engines for LRIP2 arriving for whatever the reason and will that arrival date affect EG getting LRIP2, this year 2011 for training? Thanks in advance for an answer to this question.

For all you Twitter fans! What would you like to know about the F135 program? Ask Bennett Croswell (President of PW Military Engines) on @F135engine or use hash tag #f135 from 12:30-1:pm (EST) today!

Why is all the cool stuff during the work day!?!

I need a Twitter account now?

TEG

Progress To Date:
F135 Production Engines Delivered: 27
F135 Powered Flights: 1112
F135 Flight Hours: 1718
VERTICAL LANDINGS: 130

enginesrus wrote:Progress To Date:
F135 Production Engines Delivered: 27..

SDD= AA-1; AF-1-4; BF-1-5; CF-1-3 Total= 13
LRIP1= AF-6&7 Total= 2
LRIP2= AF-8-13; BF-6-11 Total= 12

SDD+LRIP1+LRIP2 Total= 27

Not flown to date (2Sep11): AF-12&13; BF-6-11 Total= 8

Corrected: (courtesy of qwe2008) AF-12 & 13 flew in July.


Any estimate on delivery support for LRIP 3?

neptune wrote:

enginesrus wrote:Progress To Date:
F135 Production Engines Delivered: 27..

SDD= AA-1; AF-1-4; BF-1-5; CF-1-3 Total= 13
LRIP1= AF-6&7 Total= 2
LRIP2= AF-8-13; BF-6-11 Total= 12

SDD+LRIP1+LRIP2 Total= 27

Not flown to date (2Sep11): AF-12&13; BF-6-11 Total= 8

Any estimate on delivery support for LRIP 3?

no.

"F135 Production Engines", SDD engines not included.
there are about 30*F-135 and 6*F-136 in SDD contracts.

AF-12 and AF-13 had flown in 2011-July.

the number of enigines is more than jets.
there are 16*F-135 in LRIP-2 contracts, 21*F-135 in LRIP-3 contracts.

fighterfanboy wrote:On the topic. What is the combat rated thrust for the F-135? I keep hearing 43,000 but I know they made 20% more in testing. That would be 51,600 lbs. Is that about right? Thanks

During "TESTING" yes, the engine can run above 'rated' thrust. This is not 'normal' and a production engine's computer would never let it exceed limits of the design.

Aviation Week wrote:The engine was run both augmented and dry (non-augmented), and at the above-design turbine temperature produced 128% of the specification dry thrust, Croswell says. This “overtemp” test, not conducted during earlier qualification of the conventional-takeoff-and-landing F135, demonstrates the engine’s margin for thrust growth, (vice president for F119/F135 engine programs) says.

You'll notice the article said "DRY THRUST", which is NOT augmenter. So your 43K - 51K figure on MAX thrust is not valid.

The point PW (and the alternate engine company) both want to make, is that the engine has potential for growth; aka thrust margin. So with little design changes, or minor adjustments the engines 'could' make more power if the customer wanted, but...

Typically when you push an engine to make more thrust, you degrade life-span. (Why Russian designs are powerful like ours, but only last 1/8 the TBO)

Let's not forget a test F100-PW-232 made 37,000lbs of thrust during a test run. 5K more than it's 32K rating, and about 127% of the current F100-PW-229EEP's rated thrust. The PW229EEP can run for 6,000 engine cycles between major overhauls. Could it make more than the 29K it is 'combat rated' for? Sure but the cost would come at engine life. What you're trying to save with a 6K engine would be burnt out of it half way through it's life. Increasing overhauls, and increasing your program's life costs.

So in summary, could the F135 make more than the 43K/MAX that Lightning II program is asking for? Yes

Would it cost more in the long run? YES, in both fuel consumption and increased overhaul rates

Are customers willing to pay for the extra power to drive up life costs of the program by tens of billions of $$? Highly Unlikely.

Now IF the Lightning II is in production like the Viper for decades, and IF the future F-35s get heavier; I'm sure that PW (or GE) will have newer versions of their motors ready for the increased power requirements, but those engines will be designed to provide the increased power without the loss of durability.

Keep 'em flyin'
TEG

Is it not true the SNECMA engines prior to the M88 design were short lived because they pushed the limits, too.

Combat rated. They said that is what it IS rated at. Not what it could do. They say it can do more. It allready has a "COMBAT RATED THRUST 20% over spec". = 51,600 lbs + or -. I would think they would say 50,000 lbs "class" in production. Just like the F-119 is 35,000 lbs "class" but I think it makes a little more.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/asd/2010/08/27/01.xml&headline=Pratt

Read it your self. This is for the A and C model. The B can't use full power "(Stovl) variant has “demonstrated much less margin” owing to configuration limitations placed by the lift fan."

Pratt & Whitney

Yes I've seen that article, but I believe their placement of words to be incorrect.

Pratt & Whitney Press Releases wrote:“While these are conditions the F135 engine will not experience during normal field operations, the purpose of this test is to demonstrate design margin at the most extreme operating conditions that could possibly exist,” explained Tyler Evans, director of F135 engine programs. “This is without a doubt one of the most demanding tests for an F-35 engine and the F135 passed the test with flying colors.”

The test also demonstrated the F135 propulsion system’s ability to produce margin relative to thrust with this engine producing 28 percent more thrust than the specification requirement.

http://www.pratt-whitney.com/media_cent ... 741252.asp

Another quote that is important to this discussion.

Defense News wrote:In an Aug. 25 (2010) press conference held at Pratt's testing facility here, Warren Boley, Pratt's director of military engines, went after GE's claim that its F136 engine will provide more than five percent more thrust than Pratt's engine. Boley said the F136's afterburner nozzles and lift fan assembly are not designed to accommodate more than the 43,000 pounds of thrust that the engines are required to produce.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4758076

PW wrote:The F135 program continues to drive down cost as it ramps up production. Even though the F135 produces 20% more thrust and weighs 1,500 pounds more than the F119, the F135 program is on track to yield full rate production costs less than the F119.

PW wrote:Maximum thrust (in pounds) 43,000 (191.3 kN)

PW F135 Product Card: http://www.pw.utc.com/media_center/asse ... t_card.pdf

So from other press sources (many official PW statements) that concern maximum or combat thrust, I think the "20% increase in thrust" is based on the F119 to F135 increase in thrust. (42K is 20% more of 35K)

I believe (at this point from the 'given' information, and public statements by PW) that 43K will be the MAX power for the F-35 in conventional flight for the foreseeable future. That is until more power is required and a serious redesign of the airframe occurs.

Lets also not forget the F135 engines will spend less than 10% of their lives providing MAX power; it will more likely be less than 2% (Based on F-16 AB usage) With the F135's 28K MIL thrust, MAX usage will likely be less than what any F100 or F110 had been previous. When you're trying to save $$ for your fighter programs over the life of the aircraft, fuel is a major concern. Flying the aircraft more at MIL than at MAX will save BILLIONS in fuel costs.

TEG

EDIT: added photos; isn't she a beauty!?