Multiyear Contract Awarded for Hawkeye 2000 Aircraft

Sea Power, Mar 2004

Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems is the beneficiary of a second multiyear contract for the Hawkeye 2000 version of the carrier-based E-2C radar warning aircraft. The company has been awarded a $576.5 million Naval Air Systems Command contract to build three E-2C Hawkeye 2000s, as well as five TE-2C aircraft, in 2004-07.

Northrop Grumman will build the aircraft at a rate of two per year and provide associated spare parts, support equipment, training and technical publications. One Hawkeye 2000 and one TE-2C will go through modification for system development and demonstration of the Hawkeye 2000.

The contract was awarded subsequent to a $108.6 million award in late 2003 for one E-2C Hawkeye 2000 and one TE-2C.

The Navy already has older TE-2C aircraft in its inventory, but they were delivered as stock E-2Cs and later stripped of warfare systems for use only for training E-2C pilots. The TE-2Cs under the new contract will be delivered from the company's St. Augustine, Fla., factory without the radar, mission computer and other mission equipment installed, but can be wired for modification to E-2Cs later if necessary.

Northrop Grumman currently is manufacturing Hawkeye 2000 aircraft under a 1999 multiyear contract, and has delivered 11 of 21 Hawkeye 200Os to the U.S. Navy and one to the French Navy. The company also is building two Hawkeye 2000s for Taiwan under the contract.

The E-2C Hawkeye 2000 completed its first deployment last year on-board USS Nimitz in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In a related development, Israeli Aircraft Industries has delivered the first of three former Israeli air force E-2Cs to the Mexican Navy.