Raytheon's TracView Airspace Management System Completes Site Acceptance Testing at Ho Chi Minh Area Control Center in Vietnam.

Business/Technology Editors

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2000

Raytheon Company's (NYSE:RTNA, RTNB) TracView Airspace Management System successfully completed site acceptance testing at the Ho Chi Minh Area Control Center (HCM ACC) in Vietnam in December. The contract between Raytheon and Vietnam Air Traffic Management (VATM), an organization of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV), is one of the first commercial contracts signed between a major U.S. corporation and the government of Vietnam since the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994. The contract required the complete replacement of an existing automation system that was not Y2K compliant.

The TracView system installed at the HCM ACC consists of multiple radar and flight data controller positions, a fully redundant radar and flight data processing capability, and various support positions. The system performs multi-radar tracking using the data from three existing radar systems, with additional radars to be added under a future procurement. Flight data provided by an Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network switch is also processed by the system.

Frank Marchilena, president of Raytheon's Command, Control, Communication and Information Systems Division, said, &uot;Although TracView is primarily intended to provide Vietnam with a Y2K compatible system, VATM will benefit from receiving a modern, sophisticated air traffic management system with more functionality for both radar data processing and flight data processing than it previously had.&uot;

The completion of site acceptance testing represents the last major milestone in a program that required the installation of a fully operational system in less than six months following contract award. VATM transitioned the system to full operations on Dec.28, 1999.

Raytheon's TracView system is an off-the-shelf airspace management solution designed to meet the needs of towers, approach facilities and small- to mid-size area control centers. More than 250 operational TracView positions have been installed worldwide since 1989.

Raytheon Company, based in Lexington, Mass., is a global technology leader that provides products and services in the areas of commercial and defense electronics, engineering and construction, and business and special mission aircraft. Raytheon has operations throughout the United States and serves customers in more than 80 countries around the world.