Smiths Aerospace selected by Boeing to supply RIUs for V-22 aircraft

FARNBOROUGH, U.K., 21 July 2006. The Boeing Company has selected Smiths Aerospace to supply Remote Interface Units (RIU) for the V-22 aircraft. The $6 million contract is for engineering units, with additional potential sales of $30 million over the next 20 years. The system will be designed and developed at the Smiths facility in Cheltenham with production beginning in 2008. Engineering units deliveries will take place in December 2007.

The functional flexibility of Smiths Remote Interface units allows rapid design modifications to be made and easily introduced with minimal disruption and cost to the aircraft program. The flexibility is important to the upcoming avionics upgrades anticipated for the V-22 program.

The Interface Unit (IU) is located in the engine nacelle, the wing, and the avionics bay on the V-22 aircraft and provides digitized sensor data over the MIL-STD-1553 bus.

Smiths' participation in the program with Boeing and the U.S. Navy is part of the V-22 cost reduction initiative. It is anticipated that this solution will provide significant cost and weight savings. The Queen's Award for innovation was awarded to Smiths for the RIU product family this year.