Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080076
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: |GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The 18-month contract to the company's Plantation Road plant is from the Army's Night Vision and Electronics Command.
The proposed system will use third-generation image intensifier tubes made at the Roanoke County plant and provide an increased 60-degree field of view, a 50 percent improvement over the 40-degree-field night-vision devices now in use. The system would, at the same time, provide up to a 50 percent improvement in low-light viewing.
The system also will feature a heads-up display of cockpit instruments, computer graphics and information from infrared battlefield sensors.
Neil Gallagher, the division's president and general manager, said the contract will not mean any additional jobs at the plant but will help maintain current job levels. The plant employs about 630 people. The new work comes at a time when ITT has been developing civilian markets for its night-vision products on the assumption there will be diminished military demand for them.
Because the contract is for development of a new system, it will involve the plant's engineering and scientific employees and considerable subcontractor work, he said. The system's optics, electro-luminescent display and aircraft-interface electronics will be obtained from subcontractors.
Receiving the contract indicates "ITT's status as the leading full-service night-vision supplier to the U.S. military," Gallagher said.
by CNB