GE wins deals for F/A-18 engine parts, hypersonic test

LYNN, Mass. and WASHINGTON — The Pentagon awarded engine maker GE Aerospace a contract worth up to nearly $2.9 billion to supply parts for the company’s F414 engine that powers the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter and EA-18G Growler electronic attack jet, according to a Defense Department announcement posted Tuesday. 

The deal was awarded as a performance-based logistics contract, which essentially pays a vendor based on outcomes. The contract runs to August 2031 with no option periods, according to the notice. GE did not respond by press time when asked to comment on the contract.

The award comes as GE navigates the best way to continue building the larger, more powerful F414 engines used by the Navy’s aging fleet of Super Hornets and Growlers, while also ramping up production of its older F404 engine that will be used in aircraft like the Air Force’s new T-7 Red Hawk training jet. The company expects to essentially double its production output of the F404 over roughly the next five years, officials said Monday during a media tour of GE’s manufacturing facilities in Lynn, Mass. (GE officials declined to share exact rates, which are forecasts based on anticipated demand.)

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“Right now we’re in the middle of a transformation, where we used to be 414 heavy,” Ryan Wood, GE’s executive plant manager for assembly and test operations, said during a tour of the engine’s production line. “Now, we’re going to be 404 heavy.”

In a briefing with reporters, Amy Gowder, president and CEO of GE’s defense and systems business unit, said the company is exploring new ways to produce engines like the F404 at a greater scale. 

“We’re trying to move to a different supply base that maybe has different commercial-off-the-shelf type standards that have operated this volume,” Gowder said.

Paul Ferraro, GE’s vice president and general manager of defense engines and services, noted in a separate media briefing that the company is trying to incorporate new technologies like additive manufacturing for its engine production, which could produce crucial components relatively rapidly and more cheaply, with other benefits like reducing weight. 

“Now we’re going back through legacy engines” like the F404, Ferraro said. “As we continue to evolve the producibility of those engines, now we’re looking at candidate parts that might lend itself to [3D] printing and additive manufacturing as well.”

Driven by demand like surging orders for Boeing’s F-15EX fighter jet, which uses a pair of GE’s F110 engine, and future potential platforms like unmanned aircraft, GE is ramping up manufacturing across several designs. With long-running supply chain challenges, Ferraro underscored that work has not been easy, but emphasized GE’s internal focus can meet the moment. 

“We hear constantly [about] the challenges in the supply base. How do we ramp to rate? How do we respond to this increase in demand?” Ferraro said. “It’s been challenging, to be honest with you.”

DIU Hypersonic Win

Wednesday’s multibillion dollar contract award followed an earlier announcement by GE this week that the company was picked by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit to provide a liquid-fueled hypersonic test vehicle, a key step forward for the firm as it pursues opportunities for high-speed systems. 

The award was issued for the DIU’s Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT) program, which has issued deals to other vendors to unlock more flight test options for high-speed vehicles. A GE spokesperson told Breaking Defense that the next phase under the DIU contract runs approximately 24 months, and includes flight testing. DIU did not respond to a request for comment on the award by press time.

The contract with DIU is a “significant milestone” for GE, said Steve “Doogie” Russell, vice president and general manager of GE’s Edison Works unit. In another briefing with reporters on Monday, Russell explained the company will be the prime contractor that will integrate an all-up round hypersonic vehicle and supply technologies like a dual-mode ramjet — a propulsion system that can operate at both subsonic and supersonic speeds. 

The HyCAT test vehicle GE aims to provide will be boosted by a solid rocket motor. During the media briefing, Dean Modroukas, general manager of hypersonics at GE, said the company has “a group of teammates” supplying different elements of the vehicle, but added that the company is not yet at liberty to name them.

While work under the HyCAT program might theoretically lend itself to GE eventually becoming a provider of something like a hypersonic missile, Russell clarified that supplying a hypersonic weapon “is not currently our vision. 

“This is a case where we do have the ability to be the full integrator for this test bed project, but we’re really focused on being a propulsion solution provider across this spectrum of activity,” he said.