Courtney,
Was it an increase in pressure ratio or purely a materials issue? It sounds like there's more to this.
The F100 problem of stagnation and/or stall could be certainly related to nuances of a higher pressure ratio engine and not having the experience as to cause and what the fix ought to be. Keep in mind that GE had a very sound and well tested high pressure engine in the F101 with a good stall margin from which the F110 evolved. The material issue came along as the F100 morphed into higher thrust versions to match the thrust of the F110-100. This entailed using new materials and advanced casting processes such as DS (directionally solidified) and then SC (single crystal) in the production of turbine blades. GE was able to not launch into these advance processes and materials as early as P&W did and therefore had time to avoid some pitfalls P&W incurred. The F110-100 engine was unique in that engine power was controlled by measuring the actual temperature being experienced by the HPT blade, not EGT. If the temperature got too high, fuel flow was reduced accordingly.
LO,
Thanks for the "good material", it was an interesting read and history recall.
I was close to Engine War 1 in the early 1980s.
So was I and into the 90s.
Fast forward to the F135 engine on the F-35. P&W had good engine knowledge going in considering the real time experience gained on the F-22. I suspect that changes to save weight and other enhancement considerations have lead to the problem/problems currently being experienced on the F-35 engine. I can't help but think the fixes may not be so simple by the silence of the L-M normal propaganda as well as the DoD's silence.