Tucson, AZ, March 29, 2004--Raytheon Company has been awarded the maximum available share of three competitive contracts for Paveway II Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) components by the U.S. Air Force. The contracts include a 70% share of the fiscal year 2004 LGB procurements for the Air Force and Navy for $116 million plus 100% of a stand-alone contract to provide front-end guidance units to the Air Force. Work will be done primarily at Raytheon facilities in Tucson and Sherman, TX.

The Paveway LGB system features an onboard guidance system that detects and guides the unit to a target illuminated by an external laser source. Since first developed in 1968 by Texas Instruments (now Raytheon), the Paveway series of LGBs have been used successfully against a wide array of targets including bunkers, buildings, bridges, runways, aircraft shelters, and missile launchers.

"These semi-active laser-guided munitions not only reduce the number of weapons required to destroy a target, but also feature accuracy, reliability, and cost-effectiveness previously unobtainable with conventional weapons," said Maj. Jose Delarosa, Paveway program manager at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. "Laser-guided bombs have been the weapon of choice in every conflict since Operation Desert Storm. More than 8,700 LGBs were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, accounting for approximately half of all the air-launched precision guided munitions."

Tue Mar 30 05:59:00 CST 2004