BUYOUT OF TRACOR TO IMPROVE JOBS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

A British company's acquisition of Tracor Inc. will provide an opportunity for growth at Tracor's Palmdale and Mojave aircraft plants, company executives said Thursday.

Tracor's merger into London-based General Electric Company Plc.'s Marconi North America group is a good match, company officials said, because it marries Marconi, a builder of aircraft subsystems, with an assembly company.

``There's greater opportunity for growth,'' said Dave Dallob, president and chief executive officer for the Marconi aeronautics sector. ``Right now, the major task is to sort through the opportunities, make an evaluation and grab the low-hanging fruit as quickly as possible.''

The merger provides benefits in foreign sales and attracts customers needing a vertically integrated aerospace contractor, officials said.

GEC, which is not affiliated with the America's General Electric, completed its $1.4 billion acquisition of Tracor on June 24. The deal gives Marconi North America $2.3 billion in annual sales and makes it the sixth-largest defense contractor in the world.

Unlike mergers aimed at eliminating competition, this merger adds new capabilities to Marconi, the company officials said. The acquisition of Tracor provides an integration - or assembling - capability, as well as expertise in defense-related information technology.

``We didn't buy buildings or programs - We bought very capable people,'' said Mark Ronald, president of GEC-Marconi North America, speaking at the Mojave plant where Tracor Flight Systems converts Vietnam-era F-4 fighters into target drones and does other aircraft modification work.

An example of the fit between Tracor and Marconi is a project to install a ``heads-up'' cockpit instrument display for an American Airlines Boeing 737.

The heads-up display projects information on the aircraft's path, speed and altitude on an eye-level glass screen so the pilot doesn't have to look down from the windshield to check his gauges.

Marconi manufactures the heads-up display system that Tracor is installing on the jet at Mojave.

Growth opportunities include installing heads-up displays for other airlines; sales to foreign markets, in which Marconi is a well-known name, while Tracor is not; and unmanned aircraft manufacturing and flight testing.

In Palmdale, Tracor Flight Systems has 52 workers - and expects to increase the number to 150 over the next three years - assembling wings and lower-fuselage sections for Boeing's 717 airliner, a twin-engine, 100-passenger aircraft produced in Long Beach.

At Mojave, 250 Tracor workers convert F-4 fighter jets into QF-4 remote-controlled drones for use as targets for the U.S. Air Force.

``It's going to be positive for our company and our people,'' Ben Medly, vice president and general manager of Tracor Flight Systems said.

Elsewhere, Tracor operates aerospace plants that produce military electronics in Texas and Pennsylvania and missile-decoy flares and chaff dispensers in Arkansas and North Carolina.

This is GEC's first major acquisition since Britain's Lord Simpson became managing director in 1996 and said he would focus on defense and industrial electronics and telecommunications equipment.

The company has worked for the Pentagon for years under such names as GEC-Marconi Hazeltine, Cincinnati Electronics, Lear Astronics Corp. and GEC-Marconi Aerospace Inc.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) (Ran in AV Edition only) Employees of Tracor Flight Systems, which does aircraft modification work, convert F-4Gs into target drones at its Mojave plant.

(2--Color) (Ran in AV Edition only) From left, Mark Ronald of Marconi and Peter Pepaj and Ben Medley of Tracor discuss avionics for the Boeing 737-200.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News