Pratt & Whitney 135: The Most Powerful Fighter Engine Ever Built
August 1, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Transportation
The F-35 Lightning II looks really awesome, especially in VTOL/hover mode, but I really don’t understand why the US Air Force considers a super-heavy 70,000-pound as the future. Then again, all that high-tech crammed into the F-35 promises to make maneuvering irrelevant for future dogfights, and at least one variant of the fighter’s claimed maneuverability is second only to F-22 Raptor (just in case).
In any case, Lockheed Martin’s insistence to develop the fifth generation fighter with that kind of weight forced them to develop the most powerful fighter engine ever built, the Pratt & Whitney 135:
Courtesy x planes
Featuring a maximum of 42,000 pounds of force under full afterburner, I wonder how quickly the Pratt & Whitney 135 can cook marshmallows. I also wonder how the super-powerful and super-awesome F-35 will be relevant for future, unconventional, warfare. By that time, everyone will be smart enough not to confront first-world countries with their powerful conventional armies head on.
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