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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowRaytheon Technical Services Co. LLC in Indianapolis will develop a new bomb rack for U.S. Navy airplanes under a recently awarded $32.4 million contract.
The Navy is looking to replace its current system of using different bomb racks for different aircraft with a single multipurpose device. If the Navy executes a full manufacturing contract, Raytheon would capture all of the work, worth an estimated $169 million.
"It's a very big deal for us," said Gerald Petrie, communications manager for Raytheon in Indianapolis. Currently, the company is one of several contractors building bomb racks.
Raytheon's plant at 6125 E. 21st St. employs 1,200 people in engineering and manufacturing. Raytheon calls the local business unit "Customized Engineering and Depot Support."
Development of the multipurpose bomb rack is to last through September 2014 and will not require any new hiring, Petrie said.
The contract was reported by the military journal Veteran Today. Raytheon's customer is the Naval Air System Command in Patuxent River, Md.
The local Raytheon unit also will be working on a $49.9 million follow-on contract to repair components for APG 65/73 radar systems, which are used on the F/A-18. The work is expected to be complete in December 2012, according to a Department of Defense announcement.
The radar-repair contract will not require additional labor, Petrie said.
Raytheon Technical Services is a division of Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co., which has more than 75,000 employees worldwide and had $25 billion in sales in 2009.
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