Northrop wins Navy spy-plane contract

For the second time in less than two months, Northrop

Grumman Corp. beat rival Boeing Co. for a large defense contract yesterday,

winning a $1.16-billion unmanned Navy spy-plane contract.

Northrop's Global Hawk drone, already flown by the Air Force in Iraq and

Afghanistan, beat Boeing and an offer from Lockheed Martin Corp., the U.S.

Defense Department said in a statement late yesterday.

Northrop Grumman employs about 2,000 people on Long Island, the majority of

them in Bethpage. The Bethpage facility is currently primarily engaged in

designing radar systems for the Navy's E-2D Hawkeye radar patrol plane.

Thomas Vice, Northrop Grumman's highest ranking executive on Long Island,

said the new contract will involve 300 new positions here this year, and the

number will double by 2010. Statewide, he said, the new program would add a

total of 7,300 new jobs at his company and its suppliers over the next two or

three years. "Years of hard work are really paying off," he said. "It's a good

day."

The Navy's unmanned Broad Area Maritime Surveillance planes will detect and

track threats to the fleet. The aircraft will operate around the clock from

five bases worldwide, traveling as many as 2,000 miles.

The Global Hawk is "flown" by a pilot based in the United States, who uses

computers to control the aircraft. The aircraft transmits pictures back to

controllers at U.S. air bases.

Engineers in Bethpage would manage the BAMS program, and design work would

be done at Bethpage, too, company officials have said.

The victory extends Northrop's lead in unpiloted planes over Lockheed and

Boeing, which dominate the manned military aircraft market. Northrop's

$5.7-billion Global Hawk order from the Air Force is already the U.S.

military's largest drone program.

The Global Hawk has been used frequently for intelligence missions in Iraq

and Afghanistan. The Global Hawk can carry up to 3,000 pounds of equipment used

for identifying enemy targets and collecting data.

The version of the Global Hawk for the Navy would be capable of operating

over water.

"Global Hawks are well into the U.S. inventory, we have lots of experience

with them, and Northrop is on the good part of the cost curve with this

system," said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an

Arlington, Va.-based policy research group.

With a 131-foot wingspan, the Global Hawk can fly to a height of more than

60,000 feet for a maximum duration of as much as 36 hours. Northrop is the

third-largest U.S. defense contractor, after Maryland-based Lockheed and

Chicago-based Boeing.

Boeing's loss is its second recent defeat by Northrop after a February Air

Force competition for refueling tankers. Northrop, which had never built a

refueling aircraft, faced a Boeing team that supplied them for more than half a

century. Northrop won that $35-billion program by offering a larger jet with

more fuel capacity than Boeing's.

Boeing is protesting that decision to the U.S. Government Accountability

Office. Boeing said the Air Force was "unfair" in deciding the competition,

charging the service changed specifications for the plane in the middle of the

competition. The Air Force has denied the charge. The GAO has until mid-June to

decide on Boeing's complaint.

Supplemented with reports by staff writer Tom Incantalupo and Bloomberg

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