Kaman Gets Contract For Bell Helicopter

Kaman Corporation (Nasdaq: KAMN) Helicopters Division of its subsidiary, Kaman Aerospace Corporation has been awarded a five-year contract to build composite helicopter blade skins and skin core assemblies for Bell Helicopters.

Under the terms of the contract, Kaman will provide 18 different assemblies for H1, 406, 407, 412, 427, 429,
430 and BA609 aircraft. All work will be performed at the Kaman's manufacturing support center in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Initial deliveries to Bell's Hurst, Texas, facility will begin in late 2009.

In addition to Bell, some of the biggest names in aerospace, including Sikorsky and Northrop Grumman, receive manufacturing support from Kaman HeliworX. The facility offers design/analysis, manufacturing, and test and flight solutions for companies that require an experienced outsourcing option. Other capabilities include integration, composite and metallic manufacturing, final assembly, rotor blade manufacture, erosion protection, whirl towers, and a sand erosion test facility.

The company is also a leading industrial distribution companies for power transmission, motion control, material handling and electrical components with nearly two hundred locations throughout North America.

Image, Kaman Corporation

USAF Modifies JPF Kaman Contract

Kaman Corporation of Bloomfield has entered into a contract modification with the United States Air Force (USAF) for the award of options 6, 7 and 8 under the company's multi-option "Joint Programmable Fuze" (JPF) contract. The modification provides new prices and quantities for the next three option buys upon exercise and updates the original contract negotiated in 1997.

The new value of the next option (option 6) of the contract is approximately $53 million. Deliveries are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2010. Upon exercise, the value of options 7 and 8 will depend on the quantity options selected by the USAF, add-ons, foreign military orders and future funding.

"This contract modification award is the result of our efforts to attain profitability on sales of the JPF to the Air Force," said Neal J. Keating, Kaman chairman, president and CEO.

The JPF is an electro-mechanical bomb safing and arming device for the USAF. It allows the settings of a weapon to be programmed in flight and is the current bomb fuze of choice of the USAF. In addition to the USAF, multiple nations currently utilize the JPF and further international market growth is planned. Kaman produces more than 2,000 JPFs per month at facilities in Orlando, Florida and Middletown, Connecticut.

Kaman Corp., headquartered in Bloomfield, Conn., conducts business in the aerospace and industrial distribution markets. The company produces and/or markets widely used proprietary aircraft bearings and components; complex metallic and composite aerostructures for commercial, military and general aviation fixed and rotary wing aircraft; safing and arming solutions for missile and bomb systems for the U.S. and allied militaries; subcontract helicopter work; and support for the company's SH-2G Super Seasprite maritime helicopters and K-MAX medium-to-heavy lift helicopters. Kaman is also one of the nation's leading industrial distribution companies for power transmission, motion control, material handling and electrical components from nearly 200 locations throughout North America.