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.

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.

AFAIK, the F-35 can't supercruise.

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

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.

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.