AAI's ABE Selected for 2 Additional USAF Platforms

• New Awards Bring Total Air Force Platforms Supported to 10

(Hunt Valley, Md., February 23, 2010) -- AAI Corporation, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that its Advanced Boresight Equipment, or ABE(R) test set, has been selected to provide alignment support for two additional U.S. Air Force platforms, the HH-60 Pave Hawk and the CV-22 Osprey(R). This brings the number of Air Force aircraft supported by AAI's ABE system to 10. These awards are valued at more than $1.5 million.

ABE is a gyro-stabilized, electro-optical angular measurement system designed to align aircraft subsystems. AAI will design, develop and deliver adapters, platform-specific firmware called a Personality Module, training and manuals for the HH-60 Pave Hawk, as well as an ABE Model 310A core alignment system. These will be provided to the Corpus Christi Army Depot in Texas.


In addition, AAI will deliver one common ABE Model 310A multiplatform boresight test set for the CV-22 Osprey to Naval Air Systems Command at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, formerly Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, in New Jersey. Naval Air Systems Command at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst previously procured ABE for boresighting the AH-1W SuperCobra(R), MH-60R Seahawk(R), AV-8B Harrier II(R) and the AH-1Z Viper(R) platforms.

AAI's common ABE multiplatform boresight test set also is used with Air Force platforms including the C-17 Globemaster III(R), C-130 Hercules(R) Avionics Modernization Program, AC-130H Spectre, AC-130U Spooky, MC-130H and MC-130E Combat Talons, MC-130W Combat Spear, MC-130P Combat Shadow and F-35(R) Joint Strike Fighter(R). Platform-specific adapters and Personality Modules allow the ABE core test set to be adapted for any land, sea or air platform.

"Our ABE system is a trusted boresighting solution, which is demonstrated by the great user acceptance we've seen on both U.S. and international platforms," says Vice President of Test & Training Systems Robert Peters of AAI. "We designed the common ABE Model 310A multiplatform boresight test set to be highly adaptive to accommodate unique customer requirements, as well to deliver the ease of use, precision, reliability and repeatability our warfighters require. With these benefits, we believe that our ABE system is the ideal boresighting solution for both legacy and modern aircraft platforms."

Source : Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT)