US giant Boeing has handed a £1.824m contract to Letchworth based Curtiss-Wright Controls which makes mission-critical systems for defence and aerospace applications.

The contract is to produce commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)  (VIUs) for use in the P-8A Poseidon, a long-range anti-submarine, anti-surface reconnaissance aircraft designed to replace the P-3 aircraft. 

Curtiss-Wright will supply Boeing with the VIUs, a 19” air-cooled, rack-mounted VME subsystem integrated with Curtiss-Wright’s processor and video switch card products.
 
Curtiss-Wright’s VIU will provide scan conversion, switching and video buffering, for inputs such as infrared and radar, for display on the P-8A Poseidon’s consoles.
 
This subsystem will be designed and manufactured at the Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing facility in Cambridge.
 
The VIUs will be shipped to Boeing’s integrated defence systems division in Seattle. Production is expected to run through November.

Curtiss-Wright has just appointed Alan McCormick as MD of its radar and video group in Letchworth. He has more than 20 years experience in the aerospace and defence market, including prior positions at Raytheon Systems, Alenia Marconi Systems’ Radar Systems Division and Siemens Plessey.

McCormick has been charged with driving European-wide growth for the UK arm.  The group’s products and solutions are used throughout the world in vehicle, airborne and shipborne command and control consoles, vessel tracking, air traffic control and air defence systems.
Customers include BAE Systems, Boeing, DRS Technologies, EDO Corp, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.