GE Aviation Kills F-35 Engine

GE and Rolls Royce announced Friday that they are abandoning plans to fund the development of the F136 Alternative Engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The engine was a source of friction between lawmakers and the Defense Department. While the Pentagon argued that the engine was both costly and unnecessary, members of Congress, primarily those whose districts the engine would have been made in, pushed aggressively to maintain funding.

In a statement, the President of the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team, Dan McCormick, thanked the supporters the program had garnered over the years.

“GE and Rolls-Royce are deeply grateful to our many Congressional supporters on both sides of the aisle over these many years as well as the military experts who have supported competing engines for JSF,” McCormick said.

Congress scrapped funding for the engine earlier this year.