Safran Aero Boosters and BMT Aerospace Join Large-Scale 3D Printing Push for the F135 Engine

Belgium Enters the F-35 Supply Chain — Through the Print Bed

At this week's Farnborough International Airshow, Safran Aero Boosters signed an agreement with Pratt & Whitney to qualify and deliver large-scale 3D printed components for the F135 engine — the powerplant behind the F-35 Lightning II. The deal was formalised alongside partner BMT Aerospace, and it marks one of the clearest signals yet that additive manufacturing is being pulled from the experimental fringes straight into the core of a frontline military engine.

The move follows a near-identical announcement earlier in the week, when Pratt & Whitney revealed a similar partnership with GKN Aerospace to explore AM for large structural F135 engine cases. Together, the two agreements sketch out a deliberate strategy: spread the risk and the capacity for qualifying printed engine hardware across multiple vetted suppliers.

Why It Matters

In a press release, Safran Aero Boosters said it will apply additive manufacturing to tackle "the most challenging parts" and relieve supply chain constraints on the engine's "highest priority components." The company says a first large-scale proof of concept is already ready.

Safran Aero Boosters and BMT Aerospace, both headquartered in Belgium, are seasoned hands at 3D printing titanium components for aerospace. The joint development project is described as "a significant step" toward validating the technology and positioning Belgium as a source of advanced-manufacturing supply chain solutions for U.S. aerospace primes.

"This milestone validates the expertise developed by Safran Aero Boosters and BMT Aerospace in advanced manufacturing technologies. It is an important achievement, and also a starting point. We look forward to deepening our contribution to the F-35 program." — François Lepot, CEO, Safran Aero Boosters

The Bigger Picture

The F135 is the most-produced military fighter engine in the West, and its sustainment has become a political and logistical priority. Qualifying printed replacements and structural parts addresses two persistent headaches at once: long lead times on legacy forgings and the fragility of a concentrated supplier base. If the proofs of concept hold up under qualification, a 3D printer in Belgium could one day ship a part that once required a specialised forge and a multi-month wait.

For the desktop and prosumer world, the takeaway is quieter but real: the same metal-printing maturity — titanium LPBF, rigorous qualification, repeatable process control — that's trickling down into cheaper industrial printers started here, in aerospace programs like this one. The F-35's supply chain is, in a sense, a forcing function for the entire metal AM ecosystem.

What Comes Next

The agreement is a development and qualification deal, not yet a production contract, so the immediate output is proof-of-concept hardware rather than line items. But with GKN and now Safran/BMT both onboard, Pratt & Whitney has built redundancy into its AM roadmap for the F135 — a sensible posture for a program that cannot afford a single point of failure.

Expect the next milestone to be a qualified, flight-relevant component demo, and likely more European suppliers joining the effort as primes spread qualification work across the continent.