Terminated F-136 program will save taxpayers $900 million

The Department of Defense announced today the termination of the F-136 Joint Strike Fighter Extra Engine Program contract with the General Electric/Rolls Royce Fighter Engine Team. This brings to an end some $2.5 billion in Congressional funding that had gone to the program since 1996, according to a paper by the Congressional Research Service.

In actuality, a stop order on the program was put in effect in late March, according to the DoD. This, in effect, stopped expenditures of $1 million per day on the program, a DoD release indicates. When President Obama signed the DoD's Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act for 2011 in to action in mid-April, the cancellation truly took effect because the bill lacked the funding for the F-136 extra engine program.

Earlier press releases had indicated that the extra engine program was considered unnecessary, and that such money could be put to use for higher Departmental priorities. The program was expected to require an additional $900 million through 2013 to see the development of the F-136 engine to fruition, according to the Congressional Research Service paper on the subject. For more on the program's cancellation, see this article at Aviation Week.

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