This program is part of a comprehensive Department of Defense effort to promote key material reclamation throughout the system. U.S. Navy Captain Ted Fink has helped drive this program and has reinforced the opportunity to maximize natural resources in the Navy domain. "Our focus is, and always will be, to provide our sailors and Marines the best products and weapon systems to defend our country and cause. But we also realize the role we have in helping to preserve and protect the environment. This reclamation effort proves that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive."

As one of the key materials that make up engine "hot sections," rhenium is a prime component in turbine blades and stators. Rhenium is both expensive and available only from limited sources. The concept is to track and reclaim rhenium-rich parts that have reached the end of their contracted life-cycle. GE has an arrangement with a Navy-approved vendor who receives and subsequently processes these parts for material reuse. Other metals are recycled from these parts as well. A first-of-its-kind for GE Aviation Military Systems Operation, the idea spawned from a similar and successful commercial engine reclamation program that exists between GE and some of its airline customers.

Thousands of pounds of rhenium-based components have been shipped thus far from the Fleet Readiness Center South East Jacksonville, Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Also, three F414 development engines were shipped from Naval Air Station Patuxent River (MD) and two additional development program F414s will soon be sent from GE-Lynn.

"We feel good about the results of this program thus far," said David Beck, who is overseeing this for GE's MSO team, "and we are committed to establishing a more predictable, consistent flow of material and also trying to institutionalize the process to benefit both GE and the Navy."