Pratt & Whitney Pumps $100M Into Poland to Accelerate F-35 and F-16 Engine Output

RTX bets on NATO’s eastern flank to solve the F-35’s engine crisis — deploying isothermal forging and sonic machining in Poland to deliver 30% more critical engine disks by 2028.

Pratt & Whitney has committed $100 million to expand its Rzeszów, Poland, manufacturing facility to accelerate production of F-35 and F-16 engine components as the Pentagon confronts deepening readiness shortfalls across its fifth-generation fighter fleet.

The RTX subsidiary’s investment targets rotating compressor and turbine disks — the structural core of the F135 engine powering the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F100 used in F-16s and F-15EX Eagle IIs, as well as civilian PW1000G turbofans. A new facility at the Rzeszów site will process isothermally forged parts and integrate heat treatment, sonic machining, and inspection operations, with full operational status targeted for 2028.

By building those capabilities in Poland — on NATO’s eastern flank, within a theater defined by mounting geopolitical volatility and high-intensity conflict assumptions along the Ukrainian border — RTX is drawing the alliance’s most exposed territory into the core of U.S. defense manufacturing.

The Rzeszów expansion is part of a broader $300 million global investment by RTX to synchronize trans-Atlantic engine production. A complementary $200 million upgrade at the Pratt & Whitney Columbus Forge facility in Georgia, which recently integrated a seventh isothermal forging press, targets a combined 30% increase in critical rotating engine parts across multiple programs by 2028.

The urgency behind the ramp-up is reflected in the F-35’s operational record. In fiscal year 2024, the fleet averaged a 50% mission-capable rate — well below the minimum performance standards set by the military services — 80% for the Air Force’s F-35A and 75% for the Marine Corps F-35B and Navy F-35C. Full mission-capable rates were worse by variant: 36.4% for the F-35A, 14.9% for the F-35B and 19.2% for the F-35C. The Pentagon’s Inspector General has identified a shortage of spare engine modules and slow depot repair times as the primary drivers of those shortfalls.

Squadrons at multiple bases have resorted to cannibalizing parts — pulling engines and electronics from one airframe to sustain another — a practice maintainers have described as a “persistent headache” that inflates costs and erodes the fatigue life of the overall fleet.

To address those pressures, the Pentagon awarded Pratt & Whitney a $6.6 billion contract modification for F135 engine Lots 18 and 19, funding new production engines and initial spares through the end of the decade. Jill Albertelli, president of military engines for Pratt & Whitney, said the F135 is the most advanced military engine in the world and that the company is investing heavily across its global production base to accelerate delivery and sustainment to meet global demand.

The centerpiece of the Rzeszów expansion is isothermal forging, a precision metallurgical technique in which dies and the metal workpiece are maintained at identical elevated temperatures — between 1,000°C and 1,200°C — throughout the shaping cycle. That thermal uniformity eliminates “die chilling,” the rapid surface cooling that induces stress fractures in the titanium and nickel-based superalloys used in high-pressure turbine and compressor disks. Hydraulic presses operating at velocities as slow as 0.5 mm per minute produce “near-net shape” components that require significantly less secondary machining, yielding material cost savings of up to 45% over conventional closed-die forging. The facility will also integrate sonic machining, which uses ultrasonic frequencies to drill and shape hardened superalloys without inducing thermal distortion.

Rzeszów’s scope also extends to the F100, a “mainstay powerplant” for 23 air forces worldwide that has accumulated more than 30 million flight hours — nearly three times the total of other 4th-generation fighter engines. Josh Goodman, the senior director of the F100 Program, noted increased demand for the engine’s latest generation as allies modernize their fleets. Pratt & Whitney received more than $1.2 billion in F100 sustainment contracts in late 2025, including a $1.09 billion agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency for consumable and repairable parts.

The investment carries added strategic weight given Poland’s accelerating military transformation. Warsaw spends 4% of its gross domestic product on defense — the highest proportion in NATO — and has ordered 32 F-35A Lightning IIs at $4.6 billion and 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters at $12 billion. Poland has invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty and activated Operation Eastern Sentry to guard against threats from Russia and Belarus. Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has called for a “bolder approach” to defense investment given the security environment along NATO’s eastern flank.

RTX employs more than 9,400 workers across its Polish operations — its largest workforce outside the United States — with the Rzeszów site alone accounting for approximately 4,500 of those jobs. Piotr Owsicki, general manager of Pratt & Whitney in Rzeszów, said. “Expanding our presence in Poland allows us to build the strategic capabilities needed to produce key technologies for advanced commercial and military aircraft engines across both current and future platforms.”

Engine supply alone will not resolve all F-35 readiness complications. Lot 18 airframes are being delivered with weight ballasts in place of functioning APG-85 radar systems, and the Technology Refresh 3 software suite drove a year-long delivery freeze that has only recently begun to ease — a reminder that propulsion readiness, while essential, is one factor among several constraining full fleet recovery.

The industrial capabilities being established at Rzeszów are also designed with the next propulsion generation in mind. The Pentagon is planning an F135 Engine Core Upgrade to address power and cooling demands of the evolving fleet, with production not expected until 2031. The fiscal year 2027 defense budget allocates $30.6 billion for Air Force acquisitions, with development of the F-47 sixth-generation fighter among the priorities.