Pratt & Whitney announced a $255-million capital-investment to establish a military-engine sustainment center in Oklahoma City, Okla., by 2028. The 845,000-square-foot operation will be a hub for depot operations for all Pratt & Whitney military engines, including the F135.
Other engines to be serviced by the new center will include the F117 and F119. Military aircraft powered by these engines include the F-35, C-17, F-22, F-15, F-16, B-52, and E-3 AWACS.
Pratt & Whitney Military Engines president Jill Albertelli said the OKC site “site plays a critical role in our global sustainment network. Last year, the team achieved record output for the F117, F119, and F135 Heavy Maintenance Centers—this investment in a new facility will further expand our capabilities and reaffirm our commitment to our customer for years to come.”
Currently, Pratt’s Oklahoma City site has over 450 full-time employees and a comparable number of contracting partners, in positions that range among engineering, data analytics, materials and logistics, quality, and procurement. The new center will include offices, meeting and collaboration spaces, a sustainment center, and onsite exercise facility, consolidating six existing sites and bringing all disciplines into two locations: the new Oklahoma City Sustainment Center and Tinker Air Force Base’s Air Logistics Complex.
Oklahoma City is part of Pratt & Whitney’s global sustainment network that supports military aircraft stationed in in Australia, Japan, The Netherlands, and Norway, as well as Marine Corp Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida, and West Palm Beach, Fla. Oklahoma City site is the only site capable of performing all power module scope levels for the F135, the engine that powers the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Recently, P&W earned an $8-billion U.S. Dept. of Defense award to proceed with production of more than 500 new F135 afterburning turbofan engines for the next three production rounds of F-35 fighter jets. In addition, Pratt is implementing a “block upgrade” to all F135 engines to improve propulsion capabilities ahead of the DoD’s planned Block 4 engine update to the three F-35 variants. Block 4 is intended to enhance the fighter jets’ lethality, with electronic hardware and software updates as part of an adoption of dozens of new weapons systems.
