In the battle to dominate the global aviation industry, European aerospace giant Airbus announced its first assembly plant in the United States July 2, a symbolic and significant step in the competition with archrival Boeing. The French-based company said the Mobile, Ala., plant is expected to cost $600 million to build and will employ 1,000…

Northrop Grumman has taken on the prime sponsorship of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) student competitions for 2012. The competitions give high school and college students worldwide the chance to design, develop and operate unmanned systems for sea, land and air. The students receive a hands-on learning experience on how unmanned systems…

Airbus parent company EADS NV July 27 announced a further delay to its new A350 aircraft as it reported second-quarter earnings that almost quadrupled from a year ago. Net profit at the Leiden, Netherlands-based European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company was $567 million, up from $148 million in the same period a year ago. Sales…

Boeing has delivered production units of a smaller, lighter version of its Tactical Compact Communications Relay, which allows a small unmanned aerial vehicle to function as a tactical, range-extending communications repeater for military handheld radios. Boeing subsidiary Insitu received four 1-pound TCCRs following tests of the narrowband relay aboard the Insitu ScanEagle UAV. A 1.6-pound…

POINT MUGU SEA TEST RANGE, Calif. – The U.S. Navy has begun integrated testing of Raytheon’s Joint Standoff Weapon C-1. During its first flight in IT, the JSOW C-1 was retargeted to strike a large moving ship target. “This flight test further demonstrates that JSOW C-1 can receive third party target updates in-flight, retarget after…

Raytheon has completed testing of High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile upgrades, which make the combat-proven missile more precise and accurate, while reducing collateral damage. HARM suppresses or destroys surface-to-air missile radars, early warning radars and radar-directed air defense artillery systems. The upgrade, called the HARM Control Section Modification, adds a GPS receiver and an improved inertial measurement…

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – Boeing Commercial Satellite Services has been approved as a service provider for the Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition program. With this approval by the Defense Information Systems Agency and General Services Administration, Boeing is authorized to provide U.S. government customers satellite communications services through a variety of fixed and mobile transponded and…