GE workers rally for engine jobs in D.C.

LYNN – General Electric union aircraft workers joined hundreds of their brethren in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to voice the need to build an alternative engine for the military’s Joint Strike Fighter.U.S. Rep. John F. Tierney, a Salem Democrat and strong supporter of the engine program, was among them.The IUE-CWA members are rallying in the U.S. capitol for the F136 rival engine for the warplane, known also as the F-35 Lightning II.The engine contract was awarded to Pratt & Whitney, which refers to its engine model as the F135. GE, in partnership with Rolls Royce, began a program for building an alternative engine, arguing that competition is healthy. Obtaining funding from Congress has proved difficult for GE.IUE-CWA President Jim Clark told the crowd a competitive engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter will save both money and lives.”Competition will make the engines better, and how can you give our service men and women any less?”Tierney said Congress “has looked at the issue of competition in procurement for a long time. Funding the F136 makes sense on fiscal merits, on policy merits, on security merits. We can’t afford to be penny smart and pound foolish.”GE’s F136 engine is not included in President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget. Last May, the full U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of funding the F136 in its Defense Authorization Bill. On Tuesday, the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense also voted to continue funding the F136 development. The Senate has not voted.GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said the F136 development is centered at GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio, and at Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis, Indiana. Development is 75 percent complete with flight tests set to begin in 2011.Pratt & Whitney has already conducted flight tests on its engine.GE has invested nearly $3 billion in the F136 engine and $1 billion is needed to complete its development.The Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program is the largest procurement in U.S. History. The plane will replace nearly all the current tactical fighter jets in the U.S. inventory. Production may reach as many as 5,000 to 6,000 aircraft over the next 30 years, Kennedy said.