Pratt & Whitney Awarded Contract for F135 Engine Production Worth Up To $1.12B

EAST HARTFORD, Conn., Jan. 3, 2012 – The U.S. Depart­ment of Defense has award­ed Pratt & Whit­ney an unde­fin­i­tized con­tract award (UCA) not to exceed $1,122,306,649 for F135 pro­duc­tion engines to pow­er the F‑35 Light­ning II. 

Pratt & Whit­ney and the DoD have reached a ten­ta­tive agree­ment on key terms for the low rate ini­tial pro­duc­tion (LRIP) 5 con­tract which con­tains fixed-price and cost-plus incen­tive fee ele­ments. A total of $358,597,078 is being oblig­at­ed at time of award, in addi­tion to the $138,800,000 oblig­at­ed in 2011 for advanced acqui­si­tion mate­ri­als. This LRIP con­tract includes pro­duc­tion engines, spare parts, pro­gram man­age­ment, engi­neer­ing sup­port for pro­duc­tion, sus­tain­ment and field sup­port for the F135 engines. Pratt & Whit­ney is a Unit­ed Tech­nolo­gies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company.

“This UCA is a vital step to allow Pratt & Whit­ney and our STOVL lift sys­tem part­ner, Rolls-Royce, to con­tin­ue meet­ing key mile­stones toward LRIP 5 pro­duc­tion deliv­er­ies,” said Ben­nett Croswell, pres­i­dent of Mil­i­tary Engines, Pratt & Whit­ney. “We antic­i­pate con­tract nego­ti­a­tions with the F‑35 Joint Pro­gram Office that will reflect the great progress being made on F135 affordability.”

The fifth lot of engines includes 21 con­ven­tion­al take-off and land­ing (CTOL) engines for the U.S. Air Force; six car­ri­er vari­ant (CV) engines for the U.S. Navy; and three short take-off and ver­ti­cal land­ing (STOVL) propul­sion sys­tems for the U.S. Marine Corps. The engines in LRIP 5 will sup­port the U.S. Ser­vices with main engine deliv­er­ies slat­ed to begin in late-2012.

Pratt & Whit­ney has designed, devel­oped and test­ed the F135 to deliv­er the most advanced fifth-gen­er­a­tion fight­er engine for the Unit­ed States and its allies around the world.

Pratt & Whit­ney is a world leader in the design, man­u­fac­ture and ser­vice of air­craft engines, space propul­sion sys­tems and indus­tri­al gas tur­bines. Unit­ed Tech­nolo­gies, based in Hart­ford, Conn., is a diver­si­fied com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing high tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts and ser­vices to the glob­al aero­space and build­ing industries.