In December 2005, DID discussed a number of India’s indigenous missile projects, and the fact that over their 20+ year development histories, the country had frequently needed to buy substitutes abroad. The exception was the Russian-Indian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which was modified from an existing Russian design and has been outstandingly successful.
It would appear that the BrahMos model’s lessons have sunk in, because one of the missiles DID had covered may be about to go by the wayside in favor of a $350 million international project based on a modified Israeli Barak surface-air missile.
EDO Corporation has been awarded a not-to-exceed, $17.2 million contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company for continued production of its LAU-142/A AMRAAM Vertical Ejection Launcher (AVEL, pron. “ayy-vell”) for the F-22 Raptor. This latest order covers production for up to 24 Lot-6 aircraft, each of which is equipped with 6 AVEL launchers. Production Lot-6 will bring the total number of F-22 aircraft under order to 131, all of which are equipped with the AVEL. These aircraft are slated for delivery to the Air Force in 2008.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. in Stratford, CT received a $271.4 million modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for Knight Hawk Helicopters (MH-60S). The MH-60S Knight Hawk is one of the US Navy’s new multi-role helicopter variants, replacing the Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knights. Work will be performed in Stratford, CT and is expected to be complete by Dec. 31, 2007.
The number of helicopters procured was not disclosed by DefenseLINK. Purchasing is done via multi-year contracts, and correspondence with any given modification is difficult to ascertain – q.v. the $33.3 million modification in January. Even Sikorsky was unable to give us details re: numbers when queried. This was a sole source contract initiated on Oct. 4, 2000 by the Army Aviation and Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, AL (DAAH23-02-C-0006).
Northrop Grumman Newport News Corporation in Newport News, VA received a $34.7 million fixed-price incentive delivery order under previously awarded indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract N00024-04-D-4409. The order covers Depot Maintenance Period of the Improved Los Angeles Class submarine USS Toledo [SSN 769].
Northrop Grumman Newport News will perform advanced planning, design, documentation, engineering, procurement, fabrication and preliminary shipyard work to prepare and make ready for the alterations, repairs, maintenance, and routine work onboard USS Toledo. Work will be performed in Newport News, VA and is expected to be complete by October 2007. The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C issued the contract.
During DID’s coverage of the Steyr Pandur II’s $1 billion contract win in The Czech Republic, DID noticed and described RAFAEL’s RCWS-30 as the weapons system mounted on top of Steyr’s press release photo. As DID noted, the system had been tested on both the Pandur II and Patria’s Armored Modular Vehicle (AMV) during the Czech competition, even though it had qualified on Finland’s own AMVs [PDF format] in September 2005.
