Avio, a leading player in aerospace propulsion, delivered the first structural module of the low-pressure turbine for the F136 engine to General Electric, entirely constructed and assembled at Avio's industrial plant in Brindisi, Italy. The F136, developed by the Fighter Engine Team comprising General Electric and Rolls-Royce, is one of the propulsion systems scheduled for the F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter).

Avio's participation in the F136 programme, the most advanced engine ever developed for military applications, will last the whole life-span of the programme with the responsibility for both development and production; a qualified participation in a technologically-advanced programme in complete synergy with Avio's research activities in the field of non-traditional materials and calculation methodologies of heat exchange.

Avio's involvement confirms the Company's leadership position in the aeroengine sector and signifies a potential turnover of over $1 billion between 2010 and 2030 relative to its participation share.

Within the JSF programme, Italy and Holland are aiming at building up a European centre of technology, MRO and logistics. In this framework, DutchAero, an Avio Group company, is collaborating with the Dutch Defence Material Organisation in the accomplishment, in Woensdrecht, of a 'Maintenance Valley' for the propulsion of the F-35 fighter aircraft, where the engines (EFACO) of future fleets could also be assembled.

Moreover, Avio is proposing itself in the support of the engine activities relative to the Final Assembly Line and Acceptance of the aircraft, whose manufacture is planned to begin at the Technological and Logistics Centre in Cameri (Novara, Italy).

The F-35 is a last-generation multi-role fighter aircraft whose production could achieve 6,000 units in the next 30 years.

Testing of the F136 engine will begin in 2009, while its first flight aboard the F-35 Lightning II is forecast for 2010. On completion of the 10,000 test hours foreseen, the first F-35 Lightning II aircraft, powered by the F136 engine, will be delivered to the U.S. customer in 2012.

Besides the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines, the aircraft is destined for the Italian Air Force and Navy. The operating requirement for the Italian Armed Forces is of a conventional and vertical take-off version of the F13 aircraft, with a total of 131 units.