Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/139409
n nexT-gen FIGHTER by vanguard staff poweRIng the f-35: "In all the years that I've worked on airplanes, there has never been a case where the engine has been so highly integrated with the aircraft," says Ed O'Donnell. The vice-president of international business development, military engines, for Pratt & Whitney is on a conference call with Canadian media to answer questions about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The effort is part of a larger Lockheed Martin campaign in recent months to counter negative press and other reports and assure government customers that the fifth generation fighter is more than a paper airplane. While much of the focus in Canada has been on characteristics of the aircraft– stealth, sensor fusion and, of course, cost – it has rarely turned to the massive single Pratt & Whitney F-135 engine that powers the aircraft. And then, the debate has revolved around a primarily Canadian conundrum – do we require one or two engines for those long flights over the barren Arctic? Far less attention has been paid to the engine itself. The F-135 has not been without problems. As recently as February, the Pentagon temporarily grounded all F-35 aircraft after a routine check at Edwards Air Force 34 JUNE/JULY 2013 www.vanguardcanada.com Base found a crack in a low pressure turbine blade in the F-35A variant. Issues with turbine blades were revealed in 2007 and 2008, and again in 2009, and the entire fleet has been grounded at least once per year since 2008 to resolve systems issues, several related to the engine. Though the recent grounding was a concern, problems with the engine have been addressed and resolved throughout its development phase. Some of that is to be expected, O'Donnell explains, because the F-135 represents a significant technological leap forward. "From the beginning of the design all the way to the installation, and the flight activities today, it is almost as if it is a single system...that talks [between the airplane and the engine]," he said. "The airplane carries a number of propulsion system components and the engine actually carries a number of aircraft components, and in the past we've never seen anything like that." Engines are often built with more than one aircraft in mind, but the F-135 propulsion system is unique to the Joint Strike Fighter. And because of its integration with the rest of the aircraft "we did some things that are unique to this engine," says Stan A next generation engine Stevens, Pratt & Whitney's site lead at Eglin Air Force Base, where the F-35 is undergoing pilot and maintenance crew training. "It is the biggest fighter engine that has ever been developed, certainly the biggest engine that Pratt & Whitney has developed for a fighter application." Stealth, one of the F-35's key selling features, also applies to the engine, which uses a variety of techniques to manage and mask heat generation, including the engine inlets. "It's very important that you are not able to see the front of the engine because it is a great radar reflector," said Dave Scott, Lockheed Martin's director of F-35 international business development in a briefing to Canadian media at the company's production facility in Forth Worth, Texas. "If you can see the engine front face – the compressor blades – you can bounce a radar beam off it and get a very good radar reflection." Like O'Donnell, though, Stevens says that what distinguishes the F-135 from many of its predecessors is the constant communication between the engine and its two full authority digital engine controllers. "Those computers not only talk to over 400 sensors on the engine and the main