F-35's F-135 engine to have 43,000 lbs of thrust; its now the world's most powerful engine

At Pratt, where conversation about engine development can have almost religious overtones, Bill Gostic, vice president in charge of the F135 engine, still marvels at the technological leap the F135 powerplant made.

"This is the world's most powerful tactical fighter jet engine," Gostic said. It will also be the most flexible military propulsion system ever built.

The F135 produces 43,000 pounds of thrust, capable of pushing the F-35 into stomach-jolting 9G turns at speeds approaching 1,200 mph. That's a big step up from the Pratt F119 engine that preceded it, designed in the 1990s for the twin-engine F-22A Raptor and rated at 35,000 pounds of thrust.

He said the F135 is based on the F119 engine that Pratt built for the Air Force's F-22A Raptor, a twin-engine plane that became operational this year. The F-22A, more oriented to bombing than air-to-air combat, is seen as a key partner to the F-35 in the nation's air arsenal through the mid-21st century.

Full article >>

Wow that is impressive to say the least.
43000 lbs is 19,500 kgs Soooo much thrust from a single engine

Another great thing about this engine is that it makes use of the best technologies from around the world i.e USA, UK and Russia :

Pratt's "integrated liftfan propulsion system," which allows a pilot to land the F-35 vertically, won the annual Robert J. Collier trophy in 2001 as "the greatest achievement in aerospace in America."

Vertical maneuvering relies on a downward-directed lift fan below the cockpit, smaller jets on the wings and a swiveling propulsion nozzle that can direct thrust downward. The system incorporates innovations by the British firm Rolls-Royce, Gostic said, but Pratt engineers were responsible for integrating them into the F135 propulsion system.

The British AV-8B Harrier was the first fighter jet to take off vertically, then switch to normal flight, but Gostic said the vertical landing system of the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 is unique.

When it lands, the plane's rearward thrust nozzle pivots by 90 degrees in less than 3 seconds. Coupled with jet thrust directed downward from both wings and the "lift fan" beneath the cockpit, the F135 system keeps the plane stable and lowers it to the ground on nothing but the jetstream.

"You can see that there is some significant high technology involved here - the stealth characteristics, the integration of these vertical-lift components that have never before been used in a fighter engine," Gostic said.

Working under a $4.8 billion Pentagon contract awarded in 2001, Pratt & Whitney, a division of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp., has spent much of the past four years in painstaking tests. The engine and other systems have gone through more than 7,600 hours of ground testing, Pratt spokesman Matthew Perra said.

United Technologies' Hamilton Sundstrand division in Windsor Locks contributed the gearbox and control systems for the F135 engine. Fuel lines and electrical cables on the exterior of the engine were also made there.

www.courant.com...

Lockheed Martin's X-35 design has a trapezoidal wing planform which initially featured foreplanes, although these since deleted; STOVL version embodies a lift fan, shaft-driven by a modified F119 with a vectoring lift/cruise nozzle developed by Rolls-Royce; lift fan replaced by extra fuel in the CTOL version. Lockheed Martin also turned to Russia for technical expertise, purchasing design data from Yakovlev; and used an 86 per cent subscale model (originally developed for the CALF project and fitted with a Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 engine plus an Allison shaft-driven lift fan) for testing.

www.janes.com...

The Russian Yak-141, which was to use similar technology (that Russia sold to USA), but was cancelled due to lack of funds.

^^Yak-141

9G turns at 'supercruise' speeds. Interesting post and information. We keep hearing a lot about the Raptor, but not so much yet about the capabilities of the F-35's.

Until recently the official number stood at 40k thrust! Thanks for posting!

Originally posted by centurion1211

9G turns at 'supercruise' speeds. Interesting post and information. We keep hearing a lot about the Raptor, but not so much yet about the capabilities of the F-35's.

AFAIK, the F-35 can't supercruise.

AFAIK, the F-35 can't supercruise.

That is correct.

Does the F-35 supercruise?
No, neither the F135 or F136 engines were designed to supercruise.

The above taken from JFS.mil

And still its top speed is 1.6 mach... how strange...

For comparison, the most powerful civilian engine is the GE90-115B from General Electric, coming in at 122,965 lb an engine and two of these are options to power the 777. Thats nearly 250,000lb of thrust on an aircraft.

www.sae.org...

The F-22A, more oriented to bombing than air-to-air combat, is seen as a key partner to the F-35 in the nation's air arsenal through the mid-21st century.

Huh?

I think they got this part backward.
The F-22 is an air superiority platform first and everything else second.
The author needs to do a little more homework.

And still its top speed is 1.6 mach... how strange...

That's not it's top speed, is unofficial top speed is Mach 1.8.
Better?



[edit on 19-12-2005 by WestPoint23]

How about it's unofficial, WestPoint23?






seekerof

The Pentagon is poised to cancel the Joint Strike Fighter's alternate engine program, which is being developed by a team led by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, according to a Pentagon official familiar with internal budget documents.

Canceling this initiative would leave Pratt & Whitney, maker of the F135 engine, as the sole provider of engines for the fighters.

Canceling the alternate engine program would be a big departure from the current plan of record.

In August, DOD awarded the GE and Rolls-Royce team a $2.4 billion contract to develop its F136 engine for the JSF program. The contract is for the system development and demonstration phase of the F136 initiative -- a phase scheduled to run through September 2013.

article >>

The F-136 :






[edit on 20-12-2005 by Stealth Spy]

Originally posted by xmotex

The F-22A, more oriented to bombing than air-to-air combat, is seen as a key partner to the F-35 in the nation's air arsenal through the mid-21st century.

Huh?

I think they got this part backward.
The F-22 is an air superiority platform first and everything else second.
The author needs to do a little more homework.

That stood out to me as well. They clearly got it backward.

Two questions.

1. Isn't the JSF 35 a one engine plane, which means it's one engine HAS to be as good as two engines?

2. Isn't it true that this engine was actually developed by Sukhoi Design Bureau and sold to Lockheed at the turn of the century?

the lift fan is a fan for a reason , its not actually a jet engine (which is what makes it so unique)

Originally posted by Manincloak
Two questions.

1. Isn't the JSF 35 a one engine plane, which means it's one engine HAS to be as good as two engines?

2. Isn't it true that this engine was actually developed by Sukhoi Design Bureau and sold to Lockheed at the turn of the century?

1. No, because JSF is smaller and lighter. Of course the engine must be better than by 2-engine planes but not that much.

2. Sukhoi doesn't even develop engines nor does Lockheed. The engine is from P&W and it would be foolish to purchase it from the russians, because russian engines were always worse than american ones. I suppose you meant the VTOL solution used by F-35B and it was not from Sukhoi but from Jak.

Originally posted by longbow
Sukhoi doesn't even develop engines nor does Lockheed. The engine is from P&W and it would be foolish to purchase it from the russians, because russian engines were always worse than american ones. I suppose you meant the VTOL solution used by F-35B and it was not from Sukhoi but from Jak.

I didn't say that Lockheed develops engines.

Now I totally disagree that Russian engines are worse than american ones, during the cold war the single purpose of the US aviation industry was to figure out why the migs were so much better.

Russians sold engine principle and technology to Lockheed-Martin in mid 90s.
In fact, F-35/JSF uses Russian engine.

The only thing I was wrong in, is saying it was developed by Sukhoi.



F-35/JSF uses same engine principles as Yak-141 and constructed on scheme of Yak-141.

skypioneers.kiev.ua...

As part of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, the Lockheed Martin X-35 concept demonstrator mock-up above) uses a derivative of the Pratt & Whitney F119 engine. In short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) mode, the engine drives a shaft which turns an Allison lift fan ahead of the center of gravity. Doors above and below the vertically mounted lift fan open before it spins up. The rear lift force and yaw control is provided by a swiveling exhaust nozzle from the engine, similar to that of the Yak-141 (#35). Roll control is provided by two roll nozzles using ducted engine fan bypass air. The X-35 was selected as the winner of the JSF source selection in October 2001. Lockheed is now developing its operational version of the concept as a supersonic multirole aircraft to replace the Harrier.

www.vstol.org...


[..]The Yak-141 had its maiden flight some 25 years ahead of the
timeframe set by foreign manufacturers for creation of such a plane.
After the show in Farnborough, Yakovlev design bureau worked together
with Lockheed on Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme. As a result,
Lockheed's final JSF proposal resembles... the Yak-141M. [..]


During the summer of 1995, Lockheed Martin announced a teaming
arrangement with Yakovlev to assist in the former's bid for the JAST
(Joint Adanced Strike Technology) competition. Yakovlev's knowledge of
jet lift technology was to prove invaluable. Lockheed Martin was
subsequently selected to build a demonstrator aircraft, the X-35, which
went on to win the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) competition and will soon
become a production fighter as the F-35.


[..] The swiveling rear exhaust is a licensed design from the Yakovlev
design bureau in Russia, which tried it out on the Yak-141 STOVL
fighter.[..]
AFA website www.afa.org...


[..]The lift fan approach had the advantage that it minimized hot
exhaust ingestion back into engine, a common problem with STOVL designs
that robs them of vertical thrust. The scheme was similar to that
pioneered by the Russian Yakovlev Yak-141 "Freestyle" STOVL fighter,
which did not enter production. [..]
Faqs.org www.faqs.org...


www.jast.mil...
"The exhaust from the engine flows through the 3 Bearing Swivel Nozzle
(3BSN). The 3BSN nozzle, developed by Rolls-Royce, was patterned along
the lines of the exhaust system on the Yakovlev Yak-141 STOVL prototype
that flew at the 1992 Farnborough air show."


www.abs.net...
"In 1995, Lockheed Martin signed an agreement with the Russian Yakovlev
Design Bureau and Pratt & Whitney signed one with the Soyuz Aero Engine
Company for information on the supersonic Yak-141 STOVL fighter and its
three bearing swivel duct nozzle. However, Lockheed apparently did not
benefit from the agreement and their return on the investment was
negligible."


I haven't read anything else about the return on the investment being
'negligible'. As it is I think the statement is quite suspect: "yes we
purchased the engine technology from the designers of the world's first
STOVL fighter, but no, we didn't get much out of it, in the end it was
all Lockheed know how!" Yeah, right.


www.aeroworldnet.com...
"In 1992/93 Lockheed contracted Yakovlev on some work pertaining to
short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft studies in reference
to the JAST (JSF) project. Yakovlev shared its STOVL technologies with
the US company for several dozen million dollars.


"Former Yakovlev employees accuse Yakovlev heads of taking personal
interest out of the deal with Lockheed, because the official sum of the
contract did not correspond with the value of the information presented
to the US company. The data was on the Yak-141 test program,
aerodynamics and design features, including the design of the R-79
engine nozzles.


After a careful study of those materials, Lockheed - without much noise
- changed its initial JSF proposal, including a design of the engine
nozzles that is now very similar to those of the Yak-141."


www.janes.com...
"Lockheed Martin's X-35 design has a trapezoidal wing planform which
initially featured foreplanes, although these since deleted; STOVL
version embodies a lift fan, shaft-driven by a modified F119 with a
vectoring lift/cruise nozzle developed by Rolls-Royce; lift fan
replaced by extra fuel in the CTOL version. Lockheed Martin also turned
to Russia for technical expertise, purchasing design data from
Yakovlev; and used an 86 per cent subscale model (originally developed
for the CALF project and fitted with a Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220
engine plus an Allison shaft-driven lift fan) for testing"


So as you can see, the JSF runs on a russian engine

Russian engines were always worse than american (and european) ones, period. And Migs were certainly not better (if they were) because of engines. All russian engines for all aircrafts ranging from cargo planes to fighters were weaker and less reliable than their US counterparts. They have the same problems still today.

Actually that engine is nothing to do with the F-35, its the engine used in the X-32B using the Rolls Royce vectoring nozzle principle.

This is actually a far superior solution to the one selected for the F-35 as the forward lift fan of that engine (also by Rolls Royce) is mere dead weight in forward flight and results in reduced fuel/weapons capacity and reduced range.

Will Belgium eventually be JSF customers or will they just expand the life of thier F-16's?

I heared Holland is a customer, Norway is and i wonder who is next?

Boeing F-32: Before and after.

Before:


And After:


Im glad they finally 'Pimped' up the F-32, it is well better looking than before and since it has had its 'nose job' it would well attract foreign customers.

AND About the British Service F-35/JSF: I believe Britain wants one specially made for them with a Rolls Royce Turbofan installed in the airframe, Although im British myself, I do admit we are some fussy people. We had this back in the 1960s with the FG1/FGR2 Spey Phantoms. Ok they had a better fuel consumption and quicker acceleration but in the sky, Those J-79 engined F-4 Phantoms smoked us out.

The same thing may happen with our F-35 JSF's.





[edit on 23-12-2005 by Browno]

Originally posted by waynos
This is actually a far superior solution to the one selected for the F-35 as the forward lift fan of that engine (also by Rolls Royce) is mere dead weight in forward flight and results in reduced fuel/weapons capacity and reduced range.

Both have their pros and contras. The F-32 solution produces more hot gases, which is not very good for airfield/ship and is more maintance intensive. Also F-35 fared better in VTOL tests,that was the reason why it was selected. And the disadvantage can also turn to advantage as you know about the possibility to use the F-35 engine to charge laser/energetic weapons in A and C version.