Need for Speed: Air Force Labs Pursue More Powerful, Efficient Engines.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

From engines cheap enough to be considered "expendable" on munitions, to rockets that can carry payloads to the Moon, the Air Force is constantly looking to improve its means of propulsion.

"Propulsion is a critical component of our quest to attain faster speeds, greater range, higher altitudes and improved power and thermal management capabilities," Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, said recently.

The service has several programs underway nestled under different organizations to improve the engines that power every size of aircraft from its smallest unmanned aerial vehicles to its heavy airlifters, as well as rockets and spacecraft, Pringle said at the Air and Space Force Association annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

"This is really a very exciting time to be in the propulsion world, and that's no hyperbole," said John Sneden, director of the Air Force's propulsion directorate, which supports 10 major commands and 50 international partners.

"In order to be able to move further, we have to be able to transition our next-generation technology, we have to be able to update the performance capability of our legacy systems, and ensure that the warfighter has the readiness, has the capability to be able to go fly, fight and win," Sneden said.

"When you hear that the lab in particular is drawing down some investments in the larger engines, that's true, but it's still a very exciting portfolio, and we are innovating truly at the edge," he added.

The United States has long held the propulsion advantage over China, "and I'll offer that our intent is to maintain that propulsion dominance," Sneden added. Yet China is catching up, he said. If the Air Force were to do no research and development on propulsion, China would reach parity with the United States in a decade, he said. "I will tell you that anytime you have an advantage, it's important to check your six. How fast is your adversary coming up behind you? What's going on? We can't keep living off the advantage. We have to always be innovating, always be moving forward," he said.

"We also have to look at not only what China's doing, but what's happening within our own environment. What are we doing that's contributing to the degradation of some of that lead? And I would offer to you that if you look in our labs, we don't have any large engine [science-and-technology] efforts," he said. The last fighter engine fielded was the F135 about 20...