DRS Technologies Awarded $2.3 Million Contract to Provide Emergency Avionics Systems for U.K. Helicopters.

PARSIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 1998--DRS Technologies, Inc. (ASE: DRS) announced today that its DRS Flight Safety and Communications unit, based in Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada, has received a $2.3 million contract award to supply Emergency Avionics Systems (EAS) 3000 for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy Merlin helicopters.

The contract was awarded under the World Wide Product Mandate agreement signed by DRS with Team Cormorant in June 1997 to equip EH-101 aircraft with EAS-3000 systems. Team Cormorant is comprised of Italy's Agusta S.p.A. and Great Britain's GKN Westland Helicopters Ltd., two of the most significant international helicopter manufacturers in the world.

To date, the agreement has led to the award to DRS of five contracts to outfit more than 100 foreign aircraft with EAS-3000 systems, including the Cormorant Search and Rescue helicopters recently selected by the Canadian government to replace aging Labradors, Italy's MMI helicopters, Tokyo's Metropolitan Police helicopters, the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force Support helicopters and the Royal Navy's Merlin helicopters, the award for which was announced today. These aircraft are variants of the EH-101 helicopter.

Over the past three years, DRS has received approximately $6.5 million in new contracts for the EAS-3000 systems. In addition, the company recently received certification from the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority for these systems. DRS is currently under contract to provide similar deployable flight incident recording systems for a number of international commercial and military aircraft and helicopter applications, including U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet and German Air Force and Navy Tornado aircraft.

The new EAS-3000 is a modular, deployable beacon system that incorporates advanced data storage technology in a single crash-survivable unit. It was developed initially for use on military and commercial helicopters. Designed and qualified to comply with the requirements and standards of the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the European Organization for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE), the system integrates a cockpit voice and flight data recorder with a crash-survivable emergency locator beacon for fast recovery of flight data and an increased success rate for search and rescue teams.

This deployable unit is released automatically from the aircraft's outer surface during an incident and immediately emits a locator beacon for recovery by search and rescue teams. In water, the system floats indefinitely. On land, it escapes the intense destructive forces that occur during a crash by separating from the aircraft at the time of impact. The recovered data, which provide detailed information of the events during an incident, are utilized for accident investigation, training, aircraft and avionics design and manufacture, and flight safety procedure development.

The design of the EAS-3000 system is based on more than thirty years of experience in deployable data storage technology for emergency beacons, cockpit voice recorders and flight data recording systems. DRS has supplied over 4,000 of these units worldwide for combat jet, military and commercial transport and rotary-wing aircraft. The recovery rate of the system exceeds 95 percent of reported incidents. The retrieval rate of data in recovered systems has been 100 percent.

Mark S. Newman, chairman, president and chief executive officer of DRS Technologies, commented, "We are pleased to receive this latest award to supply EAS-3000 systems to the Royal Navy's EH-101 helicopters and to continue our association with Team Cormorant. The EAS-3000 is the most advanced and reliable combination of flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder and emergency locator beacon system available today. A revolutionary product, it provides aircraft manufacturers with a more technologically capable alternative to the traditional 'black box' flight recorder. Our receipt of this contract under the World Wide Product Mandate enhances our position as the global leader in deployable flight safety systems."

DRS Technologies provides leading edge products and services to government and commercial markets worldwide. Focused on defense electronics, the company develops and manufactures a broad range of mission critical products, from rugged computers and peripherals to systems and components in the areas of communications, data storage, digital imaging, electro-optics, flight safety and space. The company offers a full complement of technical support and advanced manufacturing services.

Additional information is available on the company's web site at www.drs.com.