Air Force Awards Lockheed Martin $18.6 Million Contract for Laser Guided Bomb Kits
WASHINGTON, DC, September 17th, 2002 -- Lockheed Martin today announced that it has received an $18.6 million U.S. Air Force contract to produce Paveway II GBU-10 Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) kits. The announcement follows the Air Force's determination last month that Lockheed Martin is fully qualified to build GBU-10 and GBU-12 kits. The company will begin delivering the kits to the Air Force in August 2003 and will complete production in November 2003. Lockheed Martin currently is producing GBU-16 kits for the U.S. Navy. With the USAF qualification for GBU-10 and -12 kits, Lockheed Martin is qualified to produce all three variants of the Paveway II line. Its Archbald, Pa., facility delivered the first production kits in February 2002. Production on the Navy requirements continues through July 2003.
"We look forward to working with the Lockheed Martin team on building up our national inventory of this critical weapon system as worldwide conditions warrant," said Maj. Steve Toth, Paveway II program manager at Hill AFB, where procurement decisions about these precision-guided munitions are made. LGBs have been used extensively in the war against terrorism.
"Lockheed Martin is pleased to complete a two-year effort to qualify all variants of the Paveway II LGB," said Dr. Dennis Beres, general manager of the Archbald facility. "For the USAF qualification program, we worked with our sister divisions in Orlando, Dallas, Akron and Palmdale to complete a very aggressive qualification program on schedule. Lockheed Martin also received tremendous support from the U.S. Air Force at Hill and Edwards AFB and the U.S. Navy at China Lake," added Beres.
Each guidance kit consists of a Computer Control Group, which is the front-end guidance system, plus an Air Foil Group, which includes the flight stability fins on the back of each Paveway II LGB. The kits significantly improve the accuracy of gravity weapons - often referred to as "dumb bombs" - thereby reducing collateral damage and risks to U.S. and allied ground forces. Paveway GBU-16 kits are used on 1,000-lb. bombs, while GBU-10 and GBU-12 kits are used on 2,000-lb. and 500-lb. bombs respectively.
Since 1990, Lockheed Martin has delivered to the U.S. Navy and customers in seven countries over 30,000 laser guided training rounds, which are used to train aircrews in place of more expensive laser guided bombs. The Paveway guidance kits built and tested by Lockheed Martin draw on key technologies and components from the training rounds but meet more stringent live-weapon and aircraft interface specifications.
Ellen Mitchell, cell: 315-427-0967; office: 315-456-3296;
ellen.mitchell@lmco.com
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