Rockwell has brought together its Collins avionics and communications businesses into a single business unit, in a re-organisation, which follows the sale of the remainder of the group's aerospace interests to Boeing.
The two Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based units, Collins Commercial Avionics and Collins Avionics & Communications, together with Communications Systems in Texas, are being brought together into a single unit which will have annual sales of $1.7 billion and employ 11,600 people. Jack Cosgrove has been named as president of the new Collins Avionics and Communications business.
At the same time, the company has signed its first production contracts with two Russian avionics partners, involving assembly of, and software for, equipment on the Westernised Ilyushin Il-96TM/T.
Under the contracts, the Elara avionics plants will assemble units for Collins from components supplied by the US company, while the Moscow-based GosNIIAS research institute has been developing software for the Il-96, to give a modern two-man cockpit. Collins has injected around $50 million in the Il-96, around half of the US group's investment in Russia.
Source: Flight International
