Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract valued at approximately $212 million for Arrowhead(TM), the Army's Modernized Target Acquisition and Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor (M-TADS/PNVS) program, for the United Kingdom's (UK) Apache AH Mk I helicopters.

The contract was awarded by the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) to prime contractor AgustaWestland and authorizes production of Arrowhead kits by subcontractor Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Orlando, FL. The Arrowhead kits include a new design called the TADS electronic and display control (TEDAC) unit for the United Kingdom's fleet of Apache helicopters.

"We are pleased to provide the UK with Arrowhead, our advanced electro- optical system, for their helicopter fleet," said Curt Anderson, UK Apache sensors contract program manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. "By modernizing their fleet, we will enable our British allies to reduce whole life costs, while getting the improved performance and reliability that the system offers."

The first UK Arrowhead kit will be delivered in April 2007. Flight testing is scheduled to begin in late spring 2007. The integration of Arrowhead on the first four UK aircraft is scheduled for completion in January 2009, and retrofit of the entire fleet is scheduled for completion by the end of 2010.

Lockheed Martin's Arrowhead provides a new electro-optical targeting and pilotage system to Apache crews that will maximize safe flight in day, night and adverse-weather environments, continuing a 20-year legacy of the Apache's current TADS/PNVS first fielded in 1983. Arrowhead's forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensors use advanced image processing techniques to give pilots the best possible resolution to avoid obstacles such as wires and tree limbs during low-level flight. The roll-out of the first Arrowhead system under the U.S. Army's Lot 1 contract comes almost twenty-three years to the day of signing the first TADS/PNVS production contract.

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 130,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services.

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SOURCE: Lockheed Martin