Comments on: Obama Loses House F136 Vote

By: Master & Commander

Master & Commander — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:13:49 +0000

Marine Vet — You just don’t get it do you. Why do you think they cancelled the F22? Lockheed wasn’t the problem — Pratt was!!! Pratt had been a long time favorite, some 50 years of the government, but they consistently under perform and overspend. Always a beneficiary of old school money and lobbying. Congress has learned from this. The president and Mr Gates have not. Trust me, you don’t want to back a fly-off. Pratt actually lost the fly-off competition with the F119 vs F120. I heard it straight from the test pilots. Pratt won the competition, not because of a better engine, but because of the perception they successfully sold, that Pratt couldn’t afford to lose, else they’d go bankrupt. Well the government couldn’t have that could they? You want to see who would win a fly-off, just look at the commercial side of the jet engine market. Both GE and RR kick Pratt’s behind individually. Pratt loses repeatably on all fronts — cost, performance, and maintainability.

By: 48Dayer

48Dayer — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:19:57 +0000

I agree that sunk cost is a bad reason to keep spending money, but no well run business signs up for $200 billion of inventory without taking competitive bids, either.

By: Marine Veteran

Marine Veteran — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:44:19 +0000

At the root of it is our nation’s overseas involvement: ultimately, we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, then we would be saving money. Business’ (and nations) shouldn’t fund ‘purposes’ and it is pure speculation whether or not history will vindicate such a decision.

By: William C.

William C. — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:00:08 +0000

So that is why we should only buy the F136? Thanks Mr. GE.

By: jarhead

jarhead — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:48:38 +0000

So it’s ok to send $21 million to fund some frog in San Fransisco but lets not try to give the military the best option available, even if that is P&W, we may never no though. In this economy lets look at it as a jobs bill then. Obama has wasted TRILLIONS already, atleast this has a purpose and then history will show it was the right choice all along. Maybe we should cut back on food stamps and welfare for people that wont even look for a job, to keep 1000’s of people employeed. Oh no, I forgot, the number one goal of democrats is to have everyone poor and dependant on the government. That is liberal 101. Never mind

By: Marine Veteran

Marine Veteran — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:27:10 +0000

excellent point.

By: candor

candor — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:30:30 +0000

The F136 team of GE and Rolls should be told that there is a price for admission and that is for them to self fund the development of the engine. If they feel so strongly about a dual source competitive enviornment and their ability to prevail this shouldn’t be a problem for either company. By the way how many aircraft and helicopters in the Air Force, Marine and Army inventory where GE the sole source.

By: Marine Veteran

Marine Veteran — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:19:15 +0000

Making acquisition decisions based on "sunk cost" is a disaster waiting to happen. No well run business makes decisions based on "sunk cost". Read the A12 report to get a shock....for those who don't know or recall or want to recall, that was a late '80's aircraft development program run amuck...it was bleeding funding at the "cyclic rate"...throwing more funding at it (to save it) resulted in nothing but MORE funding being lost. The right thing that should have been done early on to the A12 mess was for the Program Executive Officer to pull the plug and kill the program. Instead, it was a horrific waste of resources.

By: Marine Veteran

Marine Veteran — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:13:52 +0000

"Obama looses House F136 vote" I'm not so sure...this might rather read "American Taxpayer looses House vote". Once again folks: Congress acts for the benefit of Congressmen...this is their first priority. If they happen to behave (act) in a way beneficial to the American taxpayer, it is either by chance or due to them directing "pork" to their district. Peel this onion back a layer or two and I am sure the Congressmen supporting the measure have very strong reasons for supporting it, grounded firmly in their Congressional districts. Yes, I hope so.....this decision will be subject to further scrutiny (and hopefully defeat) as the acquisition process winds its way through DoD and Congress.

By: jcs

jcs — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:17:38 +0000

well…I guess that settles it then. Thanks Jerry.

By: jerry

jerry — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:36:18 +0000

If anyone thinks there will be a savings as a result of an eng. competion, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you.

By: JRL

JRL — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:26:31 +0000

Donch’a all love that sappy P&W ad in the top right corner? Just look at that sad-eyed grunt* who won’t be getting any body armor because of ‘Billions wasted’ on stuff like obscenely over budget incompetent F135 development. Oh wait… it’s not THOSE wasted billions that P&W and the grunt are upset about, is it?

* He kind’a reminds me of the big-eyed sad Latino kids in the velvet paintings they used to see in the mall courts…

By: Taxpayer

Taxpayer — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:07:53 +0000

A little clarity. (1) To the citizenry, “pork” is when money is added by the Congress. The Pentagon has its own pork deeply embedded in the budget in the form of marginally useful programs and overhead. (2) What is not being adequatelly considered her is that years ago, the Pentagon competed the aircraft airframe and engines separately, getting the taxpayer a better bargain. In the case of the JSF, the engine was not separately competed, only the airframe as a complete system. The Pentagon decided it needs a second engine and then changed its mind later. (3) Locking in the P&W F-135 engine as a sole option will cost the taxpayers $20 billion in higher costs than would otherwise be saved from competing the engine. (4) Proceeding with the second engine has nothing to do with the current F-35 development and testing schedule. It is a separate effort. (5) According to the Constitution, the Congress is responsible for funding the Army and Navy. The President’s (any president) budget is just a blueprint or draft request.

By: TRG

TRG — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:50:41 +0000

Karl, pork is when the tax payer doesn’t get any benefit from the spending. The savings from competition will save the tax payer approximately $20 Billion, that will allow the DoD to buy a lot more protection for our troops than the cost of finishing the F136. Whether DoD buys the F136 or not is immaterial, P&W will have to meet the cost to stay competitive or DoD will have no choice but to buy the F136.

By: Formula

Formula — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:26:57 +0000

I guess you forgot why we have elected officials in the Congress and Senate Karl. Keep in mind, the Secretaries are appointed by the President with no vote by the American people. It does not matter if 10 or 15 people think we should not have it or that we will not use it. The fact is, 231 members of Congress think its the right thing to do for this country. When the actual competition begins, it will be a whole different set people and processes who pick the winner for each contract period, there will be times the alternate engine wins and there will be times the primary engine wins. Cancelling this Program would be a serious blow to Americas infrastructure, its Military capabilites and it would increase our current 13T dollar deficit by 20B dollars over the next 30 years.

By: Karl

Karl — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:03:34 +0000

President Bush didn’t want the F136 backup engine; Obama doesn’t want it; Sec. Gates and the DOD don’t want it, wont use it, and say it takes funding away from other military programs which could protect our troops. The F136 backup engine is pork spending at its WORST and only demonstrates the power of GEs lobby in Washington.

By: Formula

Formula — Sat, 29 May 2010 11:31:59 +0000

Right on RSF!!!!!!

By: RSF

RSF — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:14:54 +0000

There have been three serious failures of the F135 during testing with enough concern generated to warrant a special investigation JAT team from the Pentagon last year being sent to P&W to investigate the rising costs associated with these incidents.

Prior to that, the former Executive Officer of the JSF Program Brig. Gen. David Heinz openly discussed concerns on the P&W P135 engine saying, “the company is not achieving the projected learning curve on producing the engines because of tolerance and yield issues with manufacturing parts”.

After that a well documented gag order was put in place by Mr. Gates on the aforementioned Executive Officer to not discuss the issues with the F135 engine from that point forward. And of course we all know who got the axe and was made the scapegoat for the problems with the JSF early this year (covered by DoD Buzz Feb 1st 2010).

A excellent discussion and review on the long and sometimes ugly history of the two engined F-35 debate attached below:
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-f136-engi…

By: irtusk

irtusk — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:37:18 +0000

> unfortunately GE and RR supporters forget that Pratt & Whitney won the JSF competition

there has been no engine competition for the F-35

the engine competition was ALWAYS supposed to be AFTER the F136 came online and the two could be compared in OPERATIONAL settings.

> which is why the F135 is years ahead of the F136

no, you have it backwards, there has been no competition because the F135 is years ahead

the F135 is years ahead because it is based off the F119 while the F136 is more of a clean-sheet design

they needed the F135 to get the program off the ground because it could be ready quickly, but they felt the F136 had enough promise that they wanted to defer any final decision till it was ready

> Note that GE has no issue with a monopoly of F404s for the F/A-18

The F/A-18 isn’t going to represent 90% of our combat aircraft capability for 30 years

> while the F136 has had repeated failures

you really don’t want to go there, the F135 has had more failures

By: John

John — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:44:33 +0000

Competition is good — unfortunately GE and RR supporters forget that Pratt & Whitney won the JSF competition, which is why the F135 is years ahead of the F136. What we have now is a display of the power of lobbying from GE and earmarks from Congress. Note that GE has no issue with a monopoly of F404s for the F/A-18. The F135 is reliably powering both flight test and PRODUCTION JSF engines while the F136 has had repeated failures. Seems like no contest to me.