The U.S. Department of Defense awarded a $1.3 billion contract to Pratt & Whitney late Monday, giving a major boost to a program that will modernize the engines used in military fighter jets and help protect jobs in Connecticut as well as around the country.
The contract for the F135 Engine Core Upgrade Propulsion System comes months after the East Hartford-based company was named the sole provider of the engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program for at least another seven years.
It will provide support to the RTX-owned company related to design, analysis, testing and product support planning surrounding the upgrades to the fighter jet program for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy and “non-Department of Defense cooperative program partners.”
Pratt & Whitney noted the F135 program has supported tens of thousands of jobs across 43 states, which includes Connecticut as well as others in the region like Maine. More than 700 engineers and program managers work full-time on the program, according to the company.
A little more than half of the work will happen in East Hartford, with much smaller percentages in Middletown and Windsor Locks, according to the Pentagon. The department estimated work on the upgrades to wrap up around March 2028. The remainder of the work will be performed in Maine, Indiana, Florida, Illinois and Puerto Rico.
“This contract is critical to continuing our positive forward momentum on this program,” Jill Albertelli, president of Pratt & Whitney’s Military Engines business, said in a statement. “It allows us to continue work in the risk reduction phase with a fully staffed team focused on design maturation, aircraft integration, and mobilizing the supply base to prepare for production.”
As one of Connecticut’s biggest manufacturers, Pratt & Whitney has been producing the engine used by Lockheed Martin’s F-35 aircraft since it was awarded the Pentagon contract more than two decades ago. The company has its headquarters in East Hartford with a facility in Middletown as well as a supply chain that consists of about 100 suppliers. About 11,000 people are employed between the East Hartford and Middletown facilities.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, said 38 of those suppliers are in his Hartford-based district. Larson and others in Connecticut’s congressional delegation have worked on the issue for years, which he said in a past interview spanned multiple presidents and four U.S. senators from Connecticut.
Last year, the Air Force decided against continuing the competition to find an alternative to the fighter jet engine. President Joe Biden had also signaled his support for the modernization of the F135 engines in his 2024 budget proposal.
Competitors like General Electric had wanted to open up competition for a replacement engine for the F-35. Both GE and Pratt & Whitney received contracts in 2016 as part of the Advanced Engine Technology Program to develop prototypes. But the expected costs associated with a new program complicated the Air Force’s plans.
That enabled Pratt & Whitney to be the sole provider of the F135 engines. At the end of 2023, the Defense Department announced it would give the Connecticut-based company multiple follow-on contracts to extend the company’s work on the program.
“We know that usually investments in industry — and they are our largest manufacturer — have a 4-1 payback in terms of what it does for the economy,” Larson, who is the co-chair of the bipartisan Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, said in an interview last year following news of the Air Force ending the search for an F135 replacement. He said at the time it could “mean additional employment opportunities” to meet the new demand.
Following the announcement of the billion-dollar contract this week, Jeff Shockey, senior vice president of RTX Global Government Relations, cited the work of key federal appropriators in both chambers of Congress on the issue: U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Last year, DeLauro touted her work as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee in securing funding for the F135 engine. She also noted that Pratt & Whitney “reduced the cost of the F135 engine by 50% since production began while improving performance to twice its original specifications for years.”
“We are fortunate to have bipartisan and bicameral support from our congressional advocates, especially the Connecticut and Maine delegations led by senior appropriators Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Rosa DeLauro,” Jeff Shockey, senior vice president of RTX Global Government Relations, said in a statement. “Their steadfast commitment to the F135 ensures it will deliver critical capabilities for decades to come.”