California Business Minute™

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Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

While the southern California landscape suffers from a housing price collapse,
the aviation and aerospace industry, once a mainstay has begun to take off
again in part to three new government contracts awarded to the Century City
based Northrop Grumman. 

The company has received a $4 billion Navy contract to build the Broad Area
Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aerial System, BAMS which  is a modified
Air Force Global Hawk that will be used to patrol the ocean skies.

Northrop also won a $35-billion contract to build tankers that can refuel other
aircraft in midair. The KC-45 tankers will replace the Air Force's aging fleet of
KC-135 aircraft. And although much of the work will be done in Alabama,
Northrop estimates nearly 7500 new jobs will be created in Southern California
because of the contract.

Northrop's other recent major contract, awarded by the Navy last fall and potentially
worth tens of billions of dollars, is to develop an unmanned fighter jet that would, using
its onboard computer, be able to autonomously take off and land on an aircraft carrier.
The plane is being assembled in Palmdale.

While the first two contracts are being reviewed, the third contract and other work
involving building of the F-18 fighter and work on the new F-35, is already underway it
is estimated that Northrop will create over 15,000 new jobs in the southland.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.