“We will take that engine through preliminary design review,” Reed says. The engine must be sized to fit in the F-35 with “only modest modifications,” he says.

The next step is to fabricate and test the high-pressure core for that design, incorporating technologies from the latest commercial-aircraft engines.

The third goal is to test third-stream flow delivery into a stealthy, serpentine exhaust system. Such a nozzle is not part of the Advent demo program, which will use a slave exhaust.

The third stream — an additional flowpath outside the core and bypass duct — will be closed at takeoff for high thrust but opened in cruise to reduce fuel consumption and inlet spillage drag and increase cooling-air supply to the aircraft, engine and nozzle.

The fourth goal of AETD “is to do a host of studies with the airframers on where you can use this core,” Reed says.

Phase 1 of the AETD program, which runs through mid-fiscal 2015, includes completing preliminary design and testing annular-combustor and high-pressure compressor rigs, as well as components using ceramic matrix composites.

Phase 2 of the program, which will conclude in fiscal 2016, consists of fan rig testing and an engine core test, allowing for a notional first full engine test as early as 2017.

In addition to a possible long-term F-35 upgrade, the focus is on powering possible future U.S. Air Force and Navy sixth-generation fighters. The Navy is looking at a notional in-service date of 2028 and the Air Force at 2032.