AREA B-2 PLANT TO CUT UP TO 400 JOBS.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. will reduce its Palmdale work force from about 1,600 workers to between 1,200 to 1,400 in 2000 as the company shifts from modifying B-2 bombers to maintaining them. Northrop Grumman is nearing completion of modifications to aircraft built early in the production run to include improvements that were incorporated into aircraft in later production blocks. That modification work is expected to be completed in early 2000. ``The next phase is the programmed depot maintenance That maintenance performed on materiel requiring major overhaul or a complete rebuild of parts, assemblies, subassemblies, and end-items, including the manufacture of parts, modifications, testing, and reclamation as required. ,'' said Northrop Nor·throp , John Howard 1891-1987. American biochemist. He shared a 1946 Nobel Prize for discovering methods of producing pure enzymes and virus proteins. spokesman Jim Hart. ``The aircraft from Whiteman Air Force Base Whiteman Air Force Base (Whiteman AFB) is a base of the United States Air Force in Johnson County, Missouri, United States. It is near the town of Knob Noster, Missouri. The population was 3,814 at the 2000 census. (the bombers' base in Missouri) will come in for regular maintenance.'' Northrop will provide maintenance for the bomber's airframes in Palmdale. The company expects to receive three aircraft a year, with each aircraft undergoing about nine to 10 months' worth of work, Hart said. The first B-2 was rolled out in November 1988. At that time, plans called for a fleet of 132 airplanes. With the end of the Cold War, coupled with ``sticker shock'' experienced by members of Congress, the program was scaled back to 21 airplanes. Throughout its production run, B-2 opponents questioned its capabilities. Supporters of the aircraft say their confidence in the bomber bomber Military aircraft designed to drop bombs on surface targets. Aerial bombardment can be traced to the Italo-Turkish War (1911), in which an Italian pilot dropped grenades on two Turkish targets. was confirmed by its performance in the air war over Kosovo. The B-2 flew less than 1 percent of all the sorties the allies flew in the Kosovo war The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts in Kosovo. These conflicts were:
There were nights, in fact, when B-2 bombers were the only aircraft available to fly missions because of bad weather. |
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