JETS WITH FRICKIN’ LASER BEAMS: F-35 Engine Upgrade Would Enable Directed Energy Weapons.

Additional power and thermal management capability will enable the use of directed energy weapons and other advanced offensive and defensive systems and, if approved, would feature in an upgrade package called Growth Option 2.0 (GO2). Pratt & Whitney, which would roll PTMS into a suite of compressor and turbine enhancements originally proposed in the first upgrade package, G01, says the complete upgrade could be available within four years of getting the official go-ahead.

Growth Option 1.0, which was floated with the JPO in 2017, offered 5% fuel reductions and as much as 10% higher thrust. Offered as a cost-neutral upgrade, it was always meant to form part of a longer-term, two-stage improvement road map for the F-35 engine under plans first unveiled by the manufacturer in 2015. However, with the move to combine GO1 and 2 into a more complete enhancement package, Pratt is tailoring the revised proposal to closer match the F-35 upgrade road map recently outlined under the C2D2 continuous improvement strategy.

It seems we’ve barely scratched the surface of what can be done with the F-35 platform. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise, since a recent-vintage F-15 or -16 is a far more capable beast than the original ’70s models.