Engine good for troops, taxpayers

At GE Aviation's Strother Field Facility in Winfield, more than 850 employees are a part of Wichita's great aerospace industry, working every day to create new jet-engine technologies that allow Americans to move across the world safely and quickly.

As is the case at so many other businesses in our region, the new aviation innovations coming out of Strother Field also are improving military aircraft — enabling missions to be more effective and saving lives of our troops by making the planes they fly safer.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most critical aviation project today, and the most expensive single military initiative in history. The program will provide next-generation strike aircraft weapon systems for pilots at McConnell Air Force Base and others in the Navy, Air Force, Marines and our allies around the globe.

GE Aviation, together with Rolls-Royce and 20 suppliers throughout the region, has helped develop the F136 engine to power the F-35. The engine is 80 percent complete, and the Government Accountability Office has estimated that the competition represented by the engine could save $20 billion over the program's life.

It was a great disappointment to learn that funding for the F136 was not included in the recent fiscal 2011 federal budget, not only because of the impact it could have on the aviation industry in Kansas, but also because of the negative effects the decision would carry for the country's long-term deficit and military competitiveness.

As GE Aviation knows from our work in the private sector, competition forces companies to reduce cost, improve quality and finish the product on time. Defense contracting should work the same way. But without the F136, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would have only one engine option.

Though the F136 has been called a "near model program" by the U.S. Senate, the primary engine made by Pratt & Whitney has been plagued by a series of performance issues, missed deadlines and cost increases.

But the F136 team also strongly believes in another principle of the private sector: adapting to meet the needs of your customer. In this case, the customer is the federal government, and we heard loud and clear that Congress won't do business the same old way. That's why we proposed completely self-funding the competitive engine starting this year and already committing for 2012 — at absolutely no risk to the taxpayer.

Defense contractors should bear more responsibility for the cost of research and development of military programs. The F136 team is making that commitment.

Congress appears to agree that this offer represents reform thinking that can increase military effectiveness at no cost to the taxpayer. The House Armed Services Committee voted to allow the F136 to self-fund further research, development and testing of the F136 engine "at no cost to the federal government." The defense-authorization bill passed by the House last week also keeps the alternate-engine program going.

I'm confident that the F136 will be the best engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and Kansans could play an important role in future construction, operation and maintenance of the aircraft and its engines for years to come.

Self-funding continued development of the engine from now through at least fiscal 2012 isn't just the right decision for Kansas, it's the right decision for our troops and American taxpayers.

This story was originally published May 31, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Engine good for troops, taxpayers."