Aeronutronic Wins Pacts for $133.5 Million : Weapons: Newport division of Loral Corp. will make 45 Nite Hawk infrared targeting pods for Navy fighter-bombers to deliver laser-guided bombs.
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NEWPORT BEACH — Loral Aeronutronic, which designs and produces tactical weapons for the U.S. government and its allies, said Thursday it has won two contracts worth a total of $133.5 million from the aerospace division of McDonnell Douglas Corp.
Aeronutronic, the Newport Beach division of Loral Corp. in New York, will make 45 Nite Hawk infrared targeting pods for Navy fighter-bombers. The pods give the jets the ability to target and deliver laser-guided bombs during both day and night attack missions.
Nite Hawk-fitted jets are among the U.S. aircraft authorized as part of NATO’s air support for United Nations ground forces in troubled Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Under a contract worth $112 million, Aeronutronic will produce 40 pods to be mounted on the forward sections of F/A-18 Hornets. The equipment will feature laser devices to find and track targets that are designated by ground or other airborne sources. The contract also calls for production of two pods for a foreign military customer that the company did not identify.
Under a second contract worth $21.5 million, Aeronutronic will produce five Nite Hawk pods and make structural changes on the Navy’s latest jets, the F/A-18 E/F Hornets, to attach the pods to the aft sections.
Aeronutronic expects to deliver completed pods between October, 1995, and September, 1996.
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