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had warned the Air Force of the high operating costs. P&W stood ready to resolve the issues as long as the Air Force compensated them fully for the work. These contractual issues led Air Force officials to become dissatisfied with P&W’s attitude, and they believed that P&W would be more responsive and willing to fix the problems if viable competition existed (Camm, 1993). Having been effectively shut out of the fighter engine market, GE started looking for ways back in. With the F-14 having canceled P&W’s engine procurement, GE built a demonstrator engine with components from its F101 and F404 engines. Still, due to the likely costs, the Navy did not have interest in re-engining the F-14 despite congressional additions specifically addressing the problems. However, since the proposed GE engine design inherently solved the F100’s stall stagnation and operating costs challenges, and with growing frustration with P&W, the Air Force wanted to support further GE engine development (Camm, 1993). The initial funding turned out to be an easy sell, as the Air Force convinced Congress to appropriate $82.5 million, which was then supplemented by a reprogramming of an additional $33 million from $41 million that had been provided to begin development of an alternate engine for the F-14 (Ogg, 1987).
Shortly after fielding, in 1974, the F100 engine began to experience two serious issues: stall stagnation that required the pilot to shut down and restart the engine in flight and an extremely short life that drove up operations and sustainment costs. As detailed in a RAND study led by Frank Camm, the conditions for the Great Engine War were set.
With the industrial base clearly in mind, the Air Force justified GE engine development in congressional testimony, stating, “P&W will be working from a development funding base … in excess of $2 billion and an experience base … of 14 years. GE will be working from a development funding base … of $0.7 billion with no previous experience” (Camm, 1993; Drewes, 1987, p. 101). At the time, no one thought that GE’s engine would actually compete against P&W for future requirements; the primary intent was to use the threat of competition to promote
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Defense ARJ , Summer 2025, Vol. 32 No. 2: 104—130
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