Posted by Courtney E. Howard

HAIFA, Israel, 5 Dec. 2011. Engineers at Elbit Systems of America LLC, the U.S. subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ:ESLT), are manufacturing Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) Electronic Module Assemblies (EMA) for all U.S. Air Force Block 30 and Block 50 F-16 wide-angle conventional (WAC) heads-up displays (HUDs). The five-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract from the Defense Logistics Agency-Ogden is valued at up to $38.5 million.

The WAC HUD projects critical flight and mission data, which is normally displayed inside the cockpit on an instrument panel, on a transparent surface directly in front of the pilot. Enabling eyes out of the cockpit and improved situational awareness, the new design reduces total part count, lowers power consumption, and significantly improves meantime between failures (MTBFs).

"We are pleased to provide F-16 operators with this upgraded HUD and to enable increased mission availability through an order of magnitude improvement in reliability,” says Raanan Horowitz, Elbit Systems of America president and CEO. “For the F-16 HUD, we partnered with the U.S. Air Force to develop a solution which significantly reduces life-cycle cost. This is especially important considering the budget pressures faced these days by the U.S. military."