■ Boeing will demonstrate a “focused lethality munition” version of the Small Diameter Bomb under a $27 million US Air Force contract. The variant has a large blast effect, but few metal fragments to minimise collateral damage. Flight testing is set for August next year, with the USAF planning to acquire 450 of the weapons by 2012.
■ Northrop Grumman’s LN-260 fibreoptic gyro inertial navigation system has been selected to upgrade US Navy Northrop F-5N/Fs.
■ Smiths Aerospace is to supply large-area cockpit displays for 23 Lockheed Martin VH-71A US Presidential helicopters under a contract worth over $20 million.
■ Lockheed Martin is to develop a next-generation hull material for stratospheric surveillance airships under a two-year, $10 contract from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Integrated Sensor Is Structure programme.
■ Elbit Systems’ US subsidiary EFW is to supply night-vision goggle head-up displays for the US Coast Guard’s Eurocopter HH-65 and Sikorsky HH-60 helicopters under a $815,000 contract.
■ Canada’s Xwave has delivered threat emitter audio generators to Rockwell Collins for use in upgrading US Air Force Rockwell B-1 simulators.
■ GEL Engineering has been awarded a contract from CAE USA to manufacture a second Lockheed Martin C-130J fuselage trainer for the US Air Force. GEL will build a replica of the inside of the rear cabin section of the C-130J .
Source: Flight International
