CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

General Electric F110

aircraft engine

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ1369279 ↗
Source-derived summary

The General Electric F110 is an afterburning turbofan jet engine produced by GE Aerospace (formerly GE Aviation). It was derived from the General Electric F101 as an alternative engine to the Pratt & Whitney F100 for powering tactical fighter aircraft, with the F-16C Fighting Falcon and F-14A+/B Tomcat being the initial platforms; the F110 would eventually power new F-15 Eagle variants as well. The engine is also built by IHI Corporation in Japan, TUSAŞ Engine Industries (TEI) in Turkey, and Samsung Techwin in South Korea as part of licensing agreements.

The F118 is a non-afterburning variant of the F110 that powers the Northrop B-2 stealth bomber and Lockheed U-2S reconnaissance aircraft.

Design and development

The F110 emerged from an intersection of efforts in the 1970s by General Electric to reenter the U.S. fighter engine market and the U.S. Air Force's desire to address the reliability, longevity, and maintenance issues with the Pratt & Whitney F100 engines that powered its F-15s and F-16s. In 1975, General Electric used its own funds to begin developing the F101X, a derivative of its F101 engine for the B-1 bomber; the F101X would inherit much of the core design while having a smaller fan that was upscaled from the F404 so that its thermodynamic cycle and thrust were better suited for a fighter engine. The convergent-divergent iris nozzle was also derived from the F404.

The cancellation of the B-1A by the Carter Administration (in lieu of the Advanced Technology Bomber which became the B-2) meant a loss of business for General Electric, and provided further impetus to provide the F101X for the fighter engine market. The engine attracted the interest of the Air Force's Engine Model Derivative Program (EMDP), and in 1979 began funding it as the F101 Derivative Fighter Engine, or F101 DFE. The Air Force saw the F101 DFE as a potential alternative to the F100 and also a way to coerce better performance from Pratt & Whitney in addressing issues with the F100.

Following the completion of ground tests in 1980, the F101 DFE was first fitted on an F-16 for flight testing, where it showed considerable improvement in performance and operability over the existing F100.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “General Electric F110” as aircraft engine. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1975, 1979, 1980—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where General, Electric and F110 can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as aircraft engine. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1369279. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1979 and 1980.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “General Electric F110”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow General Electric F110 primary sources, General Electric F110 archive and General research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “General Electric F110”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “General Electric F110” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.