Pratt & Whitney to Release Long-Secret Data on Jet Engines : Small Firm Wins Fight on Spare Parts

The efforts of a small Connecticut company to enlarge its jet engine parts business has forced the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies Corp. to release information that it had for years considered proprietary.

Pratt & Whitney has already released information on almost 10,000 parts that go into the engines that it supplies for several models of Navy and Air Force jets. The action could spell an end to Pratt & Whitney’s domination over the sale of spare parts for its engines, a huge market worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

The unusual battle between Pratt & Whitney and Electro-Methods Inc. of South Windsor, Conn., was spotlighted Wednesday by the Project on Military Procurement, a private Washington-based group that works as a middleman in supplying reporters with information on Pentagon contracting practices.

Data on 9,773 Parts

The group released a package of court documents and internal memos, including one written Sept. 9 to the Navy by a Pratt & Whitney attorney, Irving Jaffe, confirming the company’s intent to release information on 9,773 engine parts and to conduct a review on the status of another 30,000 such documents.

Pratt & Whitney has exercised tight control over the documentation on its engine parts since the 1960s by placing the data in a contract category known as “engineering critical.” That category allowed the company to sidestep the normal government procedures that specify that, if the Pentagon has paid for the development of equipment, it holds rights to the engineering data.

In the case of thousands of parts developed in the early 1960s, Pratt & Whitney successfully argued that the “engineering critical” code was necessary because it had spent some of its own money on development and needed to maintain strict manufacturing and quality controls.

Report Disagrees

Last year, however, following a 1983 General Accounting Office report that termed the “engineering critical” characterization “questionable,” Electro-Methods went to court under the Freedom of Information Act demanding access to documents on 155 parts.

In November, 1984, Pratt & Whitney agreed to relinquish its proprietary claims to 108 of the 155 technical drawings at issue. Then, on Aug. 23, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey signed an order directing the release of the remaining 47 documents.

Electro-Methods, once again using the Freedom of Information Act, then requested the release of documentation on another 9,773 parts. After reviewing the matter, Jaffe wrote this month that Pratt & Whitney had agreed to release the information “since it has decided that they are available for open competitive procurement.”

May Use Act Again

Jaffe said the company had also decided to review the status of the remaining 30,000 “engineering critical” parts. Electro-Methods has said it is prepared to use the Freedom of Information Act again if documentation on those parts is not released.

Phillip Giaramita, a Pratt & Whitney spokesman, said it was too early to tell what effect competitive bidding on the parts might have on the company.

It will likely take months for small companies like Electro-Methods to review the reams of information released and to gear up to compete for any of the contracts.

The victory by Electro-Methods comes at a time when its former president, Alfred T. Stanger, is awaiting sentencing following his conviction in June on 36 counts of bribery in seeking government contracts.