Growing international sales will help Italian electronic warfare specialist Elettronica maintain a positive earnings trend for the next three years, believes chief operating officer Gabriele Gambarara.
Elettronica had 2007 revenues of more than €170 million, and its order backlog is currently around €1 billion. “Around 55% of our backlog relates to European programmes,” says Gambarara. “Around 25% is from the domestic Italian market and the remaining 20% is from the rest of the world.”
Elettronica invests around €10m a year in research & development, and today is widening its product portfolio beyond the RF EW product line. New initiatives include IR countermeasures and multi-shared RF aperture technologies.
“Elettronica is co-developing with Israeli Elbit group a direct infrared countermeasures systems (DIRCM) family based on fibre laser technology to be ready from the end of 2009,” says Gambarara. “And we are working with Selex Sistemi Integrati and Saab on multi-shared RF aperture systems capable of providing ESM, EW and communication functions.”
Elettronica contributes to many of the main European aerospace programmes including the Eurofighter Typhoon and Tornado. “Elettronica is also participating in the JSF programme, contributing engineering expertise to Lockheed Martin,” says Gambarara.
Elettronica also supplies the naval version of NFH-90 with the ESM sub-system, and along with Thales, the company supplies the EW suite for the Italian-French Horizon and FREMM multi-role frigates programme.
Within the core EW business there are a number of new products, including a new generation DASS integrated suite for multi-role fighters; and a new Escort/Support Jammer (ESJ) pod for stand-off, escorting and direct RF EW.
Source: Flight International
