Raytheon to Develop Joint Precision Approach and Landing System.

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 1999--

Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTNA)(NYSE:RTNB) has been awarded a $5.8 million Air Force contract to develop the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS).

JPALS is the future multi-service, low-visibility landing system that replaces aging systems with a single technology for all services and missions. These include fixed-base, tactical and shipboard applications. JPALS is a military variant of the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) civil landing system technology that will provide improved low-visibility operations in benign and hostile environments and military-civil interoperability. Both the military and civil versions of this technology augment the basic Global Positioning System (GPS) signal providing very precise and reliable landing guidance in a format already familiar to pilots.

In the initial 32-month JPALS program contract phase, Raytheon will develop the systems architecture, validate standards and build and test prototype ground and avionics systems. The work is being led by Raytheon Systems Company's Integrated Systems Division ATC group in Salt Lake City, Utah. This group also leads a FAA-Industry partnership program to develop the civil LAAS. Raytheon facilities in El Segundo and Fullerton, Calif., Marlboro, Mass., and Harlow, United Kingdom, are providing key technologies and products that are both critical to JPALS success and unique to Raytheon. Bob Eckel, Raytheon's Vice President of Air Traffic Control, said, "The JPALS program demonstrates the value and synergies of Raytheon's broad range of electronics capabilities to develop a new and complex aircraft landing system having application to both military and civil aviation needs."

Raytheon is a pioneer and market leader in the emerging GPS-based landing systems worldwide market. In 1995, the company demonstrated for the first time that GPS could safely auto-land aircraft in zero-visibility conditions during flight tests for the FAA and NASA. To date, the company has twelve prototype LAAS systems operating in six countries including the United States (Department of Defense).

Raytheon is the prime contractor to the FAA to develop the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which provides aircraft with a highly accurate GPS based enroute guidance system. In addition, the company established a FAA partnership in April of this year to develop LAAS. Together, these two systems will provide the National Airspace System with a complete, enroute navigation and all weather landing system.

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.