F-35 Cancelled, then what ?

[Turbine D]

tdracer,

but I want to add my observations (and I invite Turbine D and Engines to disagree or pile on as they see fit).

I certainly don't want to pile on because you really wrote a good perspective of the engine businesses of GE and P&W. But there are some details of interest I can provide. GE used a building block philosophy in its engine designs. By that they had demonstrator engines to examine new technologies to see if they worked as imagined by the inventors and designers. Some of the technologies that successfully emerged from the demonstrators were put into the F101, F404 and F110 engines. Then, in the mid 1970's, a NASA program was proposed named the Energy Efficient Engine or E3. The idea was to design a new fuel efficient commercial high bypass turbofan as political problems in the Middle East were driving fuel costs up. GE approached this as an overall opportunity, a commercial building block engine, so to speak. GE decided to improve fan, compressor and combustor efficiencies believing they had really good turbine and turbine cooling technologies. It turned out to be a good program for GE. I think P&W concentrated more on turbine technology, particularly on air cooling, DS and SC materials technologies. Brian Rowe was the Leader of GE Aircraft Engines at that time and he hell-bent on overtaking Pratt on both the commercial and military engine fronts. His plan was 4 pronged, emphasizing technology advancements, modernized facilities, providing excellent customer service and establishing international operations.
Things on GE's commercial side of the business were going good, the CF6-6 morphed into the CF6-50 which morphed into the CF6-80A/C. GE's large engine commercial market share rose. One of the real boosts came as a result of a disaster. The TRW airfoil machining plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania burned to the ground and as a result, airfoil machining capacity reduced significantly. At that time, JAL was deciding on an engine for a very large B-747 order. As soon as the rubble from the fire was cool, GE went in retrieved their machining tooling cleaned them all up, replaced whatever parts was damaged and placed the tooling with new machining sources. GE never missed a beat on engine deliveries and spare part requirements. However Pratt was slow to respond to the point JAL had 747's grounded waiting for spares. GE won the JAL order and that firmly put GE in the large commercial engine business.
On the CFM56 engine side of the business, the V2500 came into being as a challenge to GE and SNECMA. So GE decided to build a unducted fan, highly fuel efficient engine demonstrator using the core of the F404 engine. It was the GE37 engine and it demonstrated two important features, big fans produced better efficiencies and composite material blades could enable large fans to be produced without taking a significant weight penalty but the GE37 never made it into the commercial marketplace. So, with Boeing's announced plan to build a long haul two engine aircraft (B-777), GE took the compressor, combustor and fan technology of the E3 and coupled it with the composite material for fan blades, defining what is now the GE90 engine.
If you look at the GE/SNECMA LEAP engines they do contain all the best technologies of the GEnx and GE90 engines with new innovative manufacturing methods used to produce parts.
One of the seemingly most difficult thing to do in engine design is matching the modules to yield the efficiencies both design and computer analysis programs say one should have. For example, you can design a good fan, fan booster and LP turbine, but when they are put together, they don't deliver the advertised performance. And that is true with all of the modules.