Air Force hunts new fighter-engine makers as sole-source cracks
The RFI reads like a quiet indictment: after two decades of F135 production, the service is asking whether anyone else can deliver engines that actually meet spec.
TL;DR
The Air Force issued an RFI seeking new manufacturers for fighter-jet engines, openly cataloging "significant challenges" from the existing industrial base, production delays, quality control failures, and parts obsolescence. The Aug. 28 deadline targets engines for the F-15EX and F-16, with a multiyear procurement plan exceeding 180 engines per year by 2034. The RFI's framing is the story: it treats the current base not as trusted incumbents but as the problem a competition must solve.
The Air Force's request for information didn't mince words. "The current industrial base has demonstrated significant challenges, including production delays, quality control issues, and critical obsolescence," the RFI states, then outlines a procurement strategy built around "holding vendors accountable" for engines that are more capable, more reliable, and cheaper. The Aug. 28 deadline caps responses for what the service describes as "a strategic competition requiring industry to innovate manufacturing and guarantee supply chain resiliency."
That language is unusual. An RFI typically frames new entrants as supplements to an incumbent base. This one frames incumbents as the problem, and it lands after a punishing run of engine-driven program failures.
The F-35's F135 engine has been a persistent choke point. GAO noted in 2024 that Pratt & Whitney delivered 100% of its engines late that calendar year, and that "the engine contractor is still not delivering engines to contract specifications after 20 years of production" (GAO-24-106909). The B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program has seen costs rise by about $3 billion and initial operational capability delayed more than 15 months (GAO-26-109272).
Meanwhile, the Air Force's multiyear procurement plan calls for more than 180 engines per year by 2034 across F-15EX and F-16 programs. That's a volume the RFI's questions implicitly treat as stretching the current industrial base beyond its limits. One query asks respondents to specify "at what minimum volume your supply chain can justify private capital investments," signaling the service is willing to help manufacturers build capacity, but only if they demonstrate structural cost reductions in return.
The RFI's five "foundational pillars" emphasize lifecycle cost over sticker price, ease of maintenance, supply-chain resilience, and surge-capable production. It also asks directly about raw-material constraints (titanium and nickel alloys, casting and forging bottlenecks) at a moment when export controls on rare earths are tightening globally.
The subtext is plain: the Air Force learned its lesson from the "Great Engine War" of the 1980s, when competition between GE and Pratt & Whitney produced higher quality at lower cost with real warranties behind the performance claims (Defense News commentary, 2020). The question now is whether there's anyone left to compete. As the Air Force's propulsion director warned in 2022, the advanced engine industrial base is already "very thin", and the wrong acquisition move risked its "collapse" (Defense News, 2022).
Published ·Deep Fathom