Possible budget cuts

[Falcaner]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183086,00.html

Looks like they might have to trim back in the near term in order to pay for the war and then complete programs on the back end. I will be interested to see how the Rolls Royce decision turns out, a lot of politics in that one it seems to me that its a bad idea to change horses midstream, but then again money talks.

 

[HeyJoe]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183086,00.html

Looks like they might have to trim back in the near term in order to pay for the war and then complete programs on the back end. I will be interested to see how the Rolls Royce decision turns out, a lot of politics in that one it seems to me that its a bad idea to change horses midstream, but then again money talks.

The JSF engine decision eliminates the "alternative" engine, which was a jobs program for General Electric (thanks to Sen Kennedy who forced it on DoD). It actually added nonrecurring engineering costs overall on the premise that it would keep Pratt & Whitney in check (GE and P&W were both given contracts to supply motors for USAF F-15 and F-16 aircraft so this was not unprecedented). It results supposedly in more competition between the two engine powerhouses, but then causes more complexity on the support side by having two different motors in the pipe when you could have one. The same practice was used in missile business for years with several suppliers building Sidewinders and Sparrows (GD/Hughes/Ford/Loral/Rayco) until they gobbled up each other.

That said, Rolls Royce wins either way because they build the critical lift engine and swivel assembly for the JSF engine so they would get the same amount of engine orders either way.

 

[Falcaner]

I didn't know that is was an alturnitive engine. After you said that the cuts make a lot more sense to me.