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Northrop Grumman beats Boeing again for big contract(Newsday (Melville, NY) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Apr. 23--For the second time in less than two months, Northrop Grumman Corp. beat rival Boeing Co. for a large defense contract yesterday, winning a $1.16 billion unmanned Navy spy-plane contract. Northrop's Global Hawk drone, already flown by the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, beat Boeing and an offer from Lockheed Martin Corp., the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement late yesterday. Northrop Grumman employs about 2,000 people on Long Island, the majority of them in Bethpage. The Bethpage facility is currently primarily engaged in designing radar systems for the Navy's E-2D Hawkeye radar patrol plane. Thomas Vice, Northrop Grumman's highest ranking executive on Long Island, said the new contract will involve 300 new positions here this year, a number that will double by 2010. Statewide, he said, the new program would add a total of 7,300 new jobs at his company and its suppliers over the next two or three years. "Years of hard work are really paying off," he said. "It's a good day." The Navy's unmanned Broad Area Maritime Surveillance plane will detect and track threats to the fleet. The aircraft will operate around the clock from five bases worldwide, traveling as many as 2,000 miles. The Global Hawk is "flown" by a pilot based in the United States, who uses computers to control the aircraft. The aircraft transmits pictures back to controllers at U.S. air bases. Engineers in Bethpage would manage the BAMS program, and design work would be done at Bethpage, too, company officials have said. The victory extends Northrop's lead in unpiloted planes over Lockheed and Boeing, which dominate the manned military aircraft market. Northrop's $5.7 billion Global Hawk order from the Air Force is already the U.S. military's largest drone program. The Global Hawk has been used frequently for intelligence missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Global Hawk can carry up to 3,000 pounds of equipment used for identifying enemy targets and collecting data. The version of the Global Hawk for the Navy would be capable of operating over water. "Global Hawks are well into the U.S. inventory, we have lots of experience with them and Northrop is on the good part of the cost curve with this system," said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based policy research group. With a 131 foot wingspan, the Global Hawk can fly to a height of more than 60,000 feet for a maximum duration of as much as 36 hours. Northrop is third-largest U.S. defense contractor, after Maryland-based Lockheed, and Chicago-based Boeing. Boeing's loss is its second recent defeat by Northrop after a February Air Force competition for refueling tankers. Northrop, which had never built a refueling aircraft, faced a Boeing team which supplied them for more than half a century. Northrop won that $35 billion program by offering a larger jet with more fuel capacity than Boeing. Boeing is protesting that decision to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Boeing said the Air Force was "unfair" in deciding the competition, charging the service changed specifications for the plane in the middle of the competition. The Air Force has denied the charge. The GAO has until mid-June to decide on Boeing's complaint. Tom Incantalupo and Bloomberg contributed to this story To see more of Newsday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsday.com Copyright (c) 2008, Newsday, Melville, N.Y. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |