Northrop Grumman has been selected by Sikorsky Aircraft to provide its NAVEX air navigation system for use on UH-60L Black Hawk utility helicopters for export. Sikorsky Aircraft is a subsidiary of United Technologies.

Under the contract, which strengthens the sales of the system for international markets, Northrop Grumman's Italy-based subsidiary, Northrop Grumman Italia will supply Sikorsky Aircraft with NAVEX systems and installation kits for an initial 15 helicopters with a follow-on contract for an additional 17 helicopters.

Two NAVEX systems will be supplied for each helicopter.

NAVEX is a family of attitude and heading reference systems for both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. It is available with a variety of fibre-optic gyros developed by the company in Italy and Germany that support a wide range of accuracies, allowing appropriate system configurations to be selected to match customer requirements.

"Northrop Grumman Italia specializes in building customised navigation solutions quickly to help meet customers' navigation requirements," said Giovanni Morelli, director of business development for Northrop Grumman Italia and Northrop Grumman country marketing manager for Italy.

"NAVEX solutions are available to a wide range of international customers, subject to the European export control regulations."

NAVEX is in low rate initial production and it is certified to military standards.

Northrop Grumman operates from locations in France, Germany, Italy and Norway, providing navigation, air traffic control and postal automation systems.

In the UK, Northrop Grumman operates from primary locations in London, Fareham, Chester, Coventry, New Malden, Peterborough, RAF Waddington and Solihull and provides avionics, communications, electronic warfare systems, marine navigation systems, robotics, C4ISR solutions and mission planning, IT systems and software development.