The US Navy awarded Textron Inc.’s Bell Helicopter and Boeing Co. $1 billion to buy components for 16 V-22 Osprey aircraft through September 2009. The contract pays for long lead components that are associated with the production and delivery of 14 MV-22 versions of the tilt rotor aircraft and two Fiscal 2007 CV-22 versions for the Air Force.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…