Meggitt PLC has signed a long term agreement with Pratt & Whitney to continue the supply of advanced composite components for the F119 and F135 engines which power the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning aircraft.
The work will be performed in San Diego in the US over a 10 year period.
The 10 year agreement is valued at around $750 million and extends Meggitt’s existing relationship with Pratt & Whitney in the supply of advanced engine composites for military and civil engine applications, say the firm.
Meggitt Chief Executive, Tony Wood, said:
“Meggitt is delighted to be working with Pratt & Whitney through this ground-breaking 10 year agreement in support of the F135 and F119 engine programmes.
These components will be produced in our new state-of-the-art facility in San Diego, California which opened in August 2018 to support the rapid growth in demand for advanced engine composite components across the aerospace industry.”
Ruben Harris, Vice President, Global Supply Chain, Pratt & Whitney said:
“We are proud to sign this agreement with Meggitt. Meggitt is a critical supplier for our fourth and fifth generation fighter engine programmes, and we value the long standing relationship.”
There are upgrades in the pipeline for the F135 engine and although no service has issued a requirement for an upgraded engine, Pratt and Whitney is cooperating with the US Navy on a two-block improvement plan for the F135 engine.
The goals of Block 1 are a 7-10% increase in thrust and a 5-7% lower fuel burn. The plans include better cooling technology for turbine blades; this would increase the longevity of the engine and substantially reduce maintenance costs.
Good news, maybe UK.Gov should push for F35 this maintenance as clearly turkey is not a natural friend of most purchasers.
I thought we are building a European f35 repair facility in wales..
No Cam.
MoD Sealand is being used as an Avionic Repair and Maintenance site. Not the aircraft itself.
To clarify Turkey is now no longer a friend of the most purchasers; we can but hope that norms of democracy and openness return.
I think its a forlorn hope, since the military, which was always the guarantor of Turkish secularism and rationality, was neutered after the very convenient coup several years ago.
I would not rule it out, but mu gut is that this was a coup led by good old fashioned kemalist ideology, which drove them to remove the religious element from government.
The problem was they did it far later than they should have and the army had already suffered a purge a few years ago after a load of ? false allegations of a planned coup, leaving a high level of Islamist control of most units hence its falture.
Essentially Erdogan knew a coup would come but the Islamist political elites got their hit in on the army first and had already secured the control they needed in the army, the 2016 coup was a last gasp of desperation from the armed forces with few or none kemalists left in the armed forces, they realised they had failed in the Turkish armed forces unwritten constitutional role of maintaining a secular government first last and in the middle.
That Erdogan then used them as an excuse to purge the judiciary, civil service and educational instructions of any secularist supporters is yet another story.
I feel for Turkey and I fear it is a nation that has now crawled into darkness and will not return.
Unfortunately one thing the EU could have done to strengthen western democracy was throw its full support behind the only secular democracy ever to have survived in that region, they didn’t because of the kemalist role as a check and balance did not sit with western ideology, not recognising that democracy and secularism in that region was always held under an existential threat and needed that extra ( undemocrate protection). Sad but if we had let Turkey into the EU ( with checks and balances in place recongnising it’s not a Traditional European nation and is a lot poorer, but no more so than soom Eastern European nations ) it would never have fallen, to late now and the world is a little darker.
British engine design and manufacturing for aircraft is another thing we are world leaders at. We should be proud of companies like Rolls-Royce and Meggitt
It’s good money for Meggit and no doubt a god reason it got the contract was because the works being done in USA. I hope one day Meggit doesn’t sell to some foreign multinational like so many other British engineering company’s before have then they eventually stop engineering in the UK altogether.