Military engines: cost and capability

Industry experts provide a glimpse out at the 2020 vision of military propulsion.

There has long been an overriding element that drives military aerospace engine design: affordability. Depending on circumstances-such as major military threats-there can be another: necessity. The two may change positions temporarily, as they did in World War II and at times during the Cold War years, but in the long term it is affordability that will always emerge as the overarching influence on design evolution, putting an economic brake on the quickening march of technological invention.

Yet that very need for affordability may itself result in advances (reduced cost, increased capability, etc.) that will benefit the performance, efficiency, maintainability, and manufacturing capability of the product, and strengthen the industry that creates it. The aerospace industry, in all its constituent parts, remains essentially conservative, despite the continuous advances it has made since the Wright brothers first demonstrated powered flight in 1903. Conservatism-caution might be a better term-is likely to remain, so future developments will probably focus on improving, via ever more efficient technology enablers, what already exists, although there will doubtless occasionally still be major technology achievements such as the LiftFan of the Lockheed Martin X-35B (now F-35B) Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).