The chief financial officers of Raytheon Technologies Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. on Wednesday defended the F-35 fighter jet and its engine following another critical government report that said it too often fails to meet targets for mission capable rates.
An analyst asked Raytheon CFO Neil Mitchill at an industry conference about a “second source potential” that would require Pratt & Whitney, a business unit of Raytheon, to compete for Pentagon contracts 11 years after it won a battle in Congress and became the sole supplier of the engine.
“We’re very happy with the F-135 engine performance right now,” he said. “It’s an incredibly safe engine for a single-engine aircraft.”
