US announces Israeli JSF buy

The US Department of Defense announced that Israel has agreed to buy 25 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) and support. The contract is worth about $15 B. While eight partner countries will also fly the JSF, Israel becomes the first FMS customer. The JSF will be a short take-off and landing aircraft to replace F-16 and AV-8 aircraft.

See the story at Rueters.com.

M7 gets KC-135 work

Because of  the ongoing struggle with the KC-45 contract, the KC-135 tanker still has to fly.  Boeing is the prime support contractor for an aircraft they originally built 50 years ago.  They awarded M7 a subcontract to build spoilers for the aircraft.  M7 has been supporting Boeing with parts since 2005.  This contracts illustrates how diverse the business is with the big companies paying lots of little companies to make parts at a cheaper price then they could.

The story is at The San Antonio Business Journal site.

Navy awards target contract

The Navy uses a variety of targets to test new systems and also to train ship’s crew. Alliant Techsystems and CEi were awarded a contract to build the Multi-Stage Supersonic Target (MSST). This will simulate anti-ship surface-to-surface missiles. The press release says it cruises at sub-sonic speeds, but the name implies that at some point it is going over Mach 1. These kind of missiles are a dangerous threat to ships and they fly at low altitude and their speeds reduce reaction time by the air defense systems.

There is more at www.bizjournals.com.