Posted on 05/10/2008 12:18:12 PM PDT by jazusamo
A Navy deal for an unmanned plane is the latest won by a unit of the defense contractor, the region's second-largest private employer.
With a bulbous head and plank-like wings, the aircraft resembles a lumbering whale. And its seven-word, 49-letter name -- Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aerial System -- is a whopper.
But the award last month of a Navy contract to build the hulking, robotic patrol plane, nicknamed BAMS, could not have come at a better time for Northrop Grumman Corp. and, in particular, its military aircraft business headquartered in El Segundo.
Flying highThe contract, potentially worth nearly $4 billion, marked the unit's third big military award since last fall, reversing a dry spell for Northrop. Together, they are expected to create 15,000 new jobs in a Southern California economy hammered by the housing downturn.
The nation's third-largest defense contractor, with headquarters in Century City, has more than 26,000 workers in the region and 120,000 worldwide.
"The news is surprisingly optimistic, and if you put everything together this looks fairly encouraging," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
Although blue-collar aircraft metal-bending work has dwindled significantly since the days when sprawling factories dotted the region, high-tech military weapons development continues to be a major economic driver for the local economy.
Southern California is still considered the nation's center for advanced electronics research and development. The biggest defense contractors have major research centers in the area, including Lockheed Martin Corp.'s top-secret "Skunk Works" in Palmdale and Boeing Co.'s facilities in Seal Beach, El Segundo and Long Beach.
Northrop also designs spy satellites in Redondo Beach and robotic planes in Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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Flying high
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With a plane of this sophistication, can you imagine what one mole at a factory in a foreign country could do?
This is creating thousands of new “good” jobs in Southern California. Nice to see aviation and aerospace get a boost here.
Wonder if a Carrier can handle that...it’s good sized...
Well,...some would say that Los Angeles is damned near to becoming a foreign country...
This is good news for So CA.
Being raised in So CA I remember the aviation and aerospace industry of the 50’s-60’s, it was huge there. Sadly, LBJ moved much of it to his home state when he became president.
Well the fact remains, Southern California is still king of aerospace and aviation. And these Northrup contracts will only boost that.
I briefly looked earlier and couldn’t find anything, I’m going to check further.
It looks like the only unmanned aircraft capable of landing on Naval vessels is the MQ8 Fire Scout and that’s VTOL.
No, it is land based only.
It looks a lot like Global Hawk, but there are some significant (and challenging) differences.
This procurement has also been protested
J-UCAS was supposed to, and N-UCAS will.
Pioneer and others can operate off of ships as well.
Thanks, it’s confusing to me. Is N-UCAS the same program as the X-47B?
Thanks...
Sort of...
It was the NGC entry in the J-UCAS program, which was a forced merger of independent USAF and USN programs that was lead by DARPA. Shortly after it was transferred to the USAF at WPAFB, the USAF pulled out. The USN regrouped and out of remaining USN funds, N-UCAS was born.
N-UCAS is no where near the program that J-UCAS was in terms of scope and vision. The competition for it was won by NGC with an X-47B variant.
Boeing really took it on the chin from the USAF pullout from J-UCAS. The X-45C was really a land only bird and coverting it to carrier ops was not competitive with the X-47 what had been designed for carrier use.
Thanks again, that makes some sense now.
A modern Nimitz class can handle it easily. The C-130 landed on the Forrestal, which is a little smaller than a Nimitz class. The wingspan of the C-130 is about the same as the BAMS, and is considerably heaver. (85,000 pounds up to 121,000 pounds in the carrier landing trials compared to 32,500 lbs for the BAMS)
Much of it was already here. What is now the Lockheed plant (AF Plant 4?) in Ft Worth was the Consolidated Plant in WW-II, making B-24s, then it built the B-36, all before LBJ was anything more than a hick Congressman who married well. There was a Voight plant in Grand Praire making Corsairs during WW-II, and it made various other aircraft (F-8, A-7, and others) before LBJ became President. That really only leaves the Bell/Textron plant, which makes helicopters, and the V-22, in Hurst/Ft.Worth, which moved there, from New York state, in 1951.
It's true that Texas fared better under the Carter and Clinton cutbacks, and the Reagan build up, than California, even though Reagan was from California. But that is probably due to high labor rates, and a tax and regulatory environment in California that was a big negative factor in corporate decisions.
Years ago, the first time I went to Texas I was astounded at how many Air Force bases were there or had been there that were closed down that were WWII vintage. I did some reading on it later and it almost seemed that during the war most towns had a base or an airstrip (I know that’s an exageration). :)
My Dad worked in aerospace and retired in the 70’s from it and I know he used to talk about losing some of the industry due to LBJ but I don’t know specifics. There were many small sub contractor machine shops all over LA county and many of them folded about that time.
Thanks for the info.
“Wonder if a Carrier can handle that...it’s good sized...”
For what purpose you need that thing on a carrier? This bird can fly 36 hours at a speed of 400 mph. Say 6 hours on station and you got 6,000 miles radius. Look at the list of US bases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Force_installations
and you see there is no need for an aircraft carrier.
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