Cubic Conducts Final Tests On U.K. Combat Training System, Prepares for User Trials This Summer.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2002

The most realistic combat training system ever to be developed is taking shape at the United Kingdom's Salisbury Plain Training Area and the British Army Training Unit at Suffield, Alberta, Canada.

Cubic Defense Applications group, a segment of San Diego-based Cubic Corp. (AMEX:CUB), has completed installing the U.K. Area Weapons Effects Simulator at Salisbury Plain and is now conducting final integration and testing there prior to the start of user trials in July 2002. Cubic's system at the British Army Training Unit, Suffield (BATUS), located near Medicine Hat in Alberta, is approximately 80 percent installed.

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence awarded a contract to Cubic in 1998 to create AWES, an advanced combat training system that features Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) capabilities not achieved anywhere else. AWES simulates area weapons effects, including artillery, mortar fire, smoke, nuclear, biological, chemical attacks, mines, air-delivered munitions and other obstacles soldiers face during simulated force-on-force battles. Participants in AWES training will be equipped with digital communications that will tell the British Army exercise controllers where players are, when they fire weapons and when they get hit, their nuclear, biological and chemical contamination status and other important features.

"Our program team in the U.S. and U.K. is doing an outstanding job, and I believe that is reflected in the customer feedback we have received," said Gerald Dinkel, president and CEO of the Cubic Defense Applications group. "There are significant challenges still ahead, but we've got the right people and relationships to get the job done. A successfully deployed AWES system will be the cornerstone for significant future business in the U.K."

Gary Shrock, AWES program manager for Cubic, said Cubic is in the process of expanding its permanent site staff of technicians and training analysts to 34 people over the next several months in order to support the trials starting in July. In addition, four engineering personnel from San Diego have transferred to the field for a year to assist in the integration, testing and trials on site at Salisbury Plain.

"Acceptance of this SPTA system is scheduled for mid-December and we are doing whatever it takes to meet that schedule," Shrock said.

Cubic is nearing completion of manufacturing all of the deliverable AWES products used by the soldiers: manworn vests, helmet arrays, Small Arms Transmitters, vehicle installation kits and associated electronics. Employees worked diligently in March and April on in-house software Formal Qualification Testing (FQT). The FQT will be followed by in-house verification testing starting in May prior to final shipment of equipment to Canada. Final site integration, testing and user trials in Canada will start in early fall and will continue until August 2003.

"The AWES project is going very well," Shrock said. "We are working through the last difficult testing efforts necessary to complete the project through acceptance. We are building two large ground training ranges, constructing buildings and towers, developing significant new products for the British Army, dealing with a new customer and learning a new set of standards that in many ways are much more stringent than U.S. standards. I am proud of the way our people have performed. The AWES system will be without a doubt the best ground training range in the world when it is accepted later this year."

The Cubic Defense Applications group, one of Cubic's two major segments, produces instrumented air and ground combat training systems, battle command training, simulations and simulation support for U.S. and allied military forces. The group also produces high technology avionics, data links and communications products for government and commercial customers, and a wide range of technical and logistics services. The corporation's other major segment, Cubic Transportation Systems, designs and manufactures automatic fare collection systems for public mass transit authorities. For more information about Cubic, see the company's Web site at www.cubic.com.