GE Boosts F-35 Engine Savings in Bid to Keep Funding

General Electric Co. broadened an offer to build backup engines at a fixed price for the U.S. military’s Joint Strike Fighter, yielding initial savings of as much as $1 billion, as it urges Congress to keep financing a program the Pentagon recommended scrapping.

The proposal from GE and partner Rolls-Royce Group Plc to absorb cost overruns on the first 150 backup engines for the F- 35 Joint Strike Fighter expands a September offer to build 100 for a fixed price. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had decided to exclude funding for the engine from the Pentagon’s 2011 budget.
 

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By Rachel Layne and Gopal Ratnam