Starting the week off with a bang (if you'll pardon the expression), the U.S. Department of Defense announced 18 separate contract awards on Friday worth approximately $1.95 billion in total. Out of these, United Technologies (RTX -0.32%) subsidiaries claimed two contracts, one small and one... huge.
The smaller award (by a mile) went to UTC subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft, which was awarded a $7 million contract modification to continue installations of Star Safire II FLIR (infrared camera) kits on 12 Army HH-60 helicopters through Dec. 31, 2013.
The much larger award went to UTC subsidiary Goodrich, which won a firm-fixed price, no option, multiyear contract worth up to $208.5 million to supply Army/Navy Piloted Aircraft/Visual and Visible Light/Receiving, Passive Detecting (AN/AVR-2B) Laser Detecting Sets (LDS), and associated parts and services, to the U.S. Army Contracting Command.
AN/AVR-2B is described as a passive laser warning system. Its function is to warn a helicopter crew when it has been "lit up" with a hostile weapon's laser range finder, alerting the crew to the need to take evasive action.
