LE BOURGET, France - June 18, 2007 – GE Aviation recently was selected by Boeing to provide the primary and secondary lighting controllers, forward cabin control station, hydraulic fluid level monitor, and ramp door control panel for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft. The five-year agreement, valued at almost $15 million, is for 167 aircraft. 

“The V-22 Osprey is an excellent example of how the depth of our avionics and integration expertise provides operating and cost advantages for our customers,” said Dr. John Ferrie, President, Systems for GE Aviation.

GE Aviation’s panel and lighting controllers provide the V-22 with a highly integrated solution for precise lighting control in the aircraft’s interior, including cockpit instrument, console, flood, formation and dome lighting.  Manufacturing will take place at the GE facility in New York, with production deliveries beginning in 2008.    

GE is also supplying the aircraft with several other avionics systems resulting from its strength in integrating digital, electrical power and mechanical systems.  Including this new win, GE’s content on the V-22 is now valued at $155M through the life of the program.

About the V-22 Osprey:  Boeing Rotorcraft Systems, a division of The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], and Bell Helicopter Textron, a unit of Textron Inc. [NYSE: TXT] share responsibility for production of the revolutionary tiltrotor aircraft that combines the hover and vertical takeoff and landing capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a turboprop airplane.  Bell has responsibility for all the flight dynamics including the wings and engine nacelles. Boeing has responsibility for the fuselage, all subsystems, digital avionics and fly-by-wire flight-control systems.

The work is being performed by the Systems division of GE Aviation, formerly Smiths Aerospace.

GE Aviation, an operating unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of commercial and military jet engines and components as well as integrated digital, electric power, and mechanical systems for aircraft. GE Aviation also has a global service network to support these offerings. For more information, visit us at www.ge.com/aviation.

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GE Aviation incorporates new technology efficiencies for V-22

LE BOURGET, France – June 18, 2007 – GE Aviation’s Systems division (formerly Smiths Aerospace) is providing the next generation interface solution for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey.  The interface units (IU) enable external signals to be digitized and effectively communicate to the aircraft systems.  The V-22 interface units are currently in system verification and validation testing, which is due to be complete next month, and followed with a flight test program.  

The V-22 Interface Unit program is valued at $6M for engineering development, followed by potential production sales of $30M over the next 20 years.  The system is designed and developed at the Company’s facility in Cheltenham U.K.  Production deliveries begin in 2008. 

The functional flexibility provided by the remote interface units allow rapid design modifications to be made and easily introduced with minimal systems disruption and cost to the aircraft program.  The flexibility is important to the upcoming avionics upgrades anticipated for the V-22 program. 

The Interface Units are located in the engine nacelle, the wing and the avionics bay on the V-22 aircraft and provide digitized sensor data over the MIL-STD-1553 bus.  GE Aviation’s participation in the program with Boeing and the U.S. Navy is part of the V-22 cost reduction initiative.  GE Aviation is proud to be part of the Osprey team and we look forward to supporting the Bell-Boeing team and the US Armed Services as the V-22 deploys in the Global War on Terrorism later this year.

GE Aviation’s System content on the V-22 is valued at $140M for the life of the program including:

About the RIU family:  The Remote Interface Unit (RIU) product family is a range of units that offer incredible flexibility with the ability to digitize signals like voltage, current, frequency and temperature and effectively communicate them to a large number of aircraft systems via the central nervous system of a modern aircraft - its communication network.   The RIU family supports the aerospace industry’s transition to Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architectures – providing a standardized unit that can interface to multiple types of aircraft sensors and communicate with centralized computing resources.

GE Aviation, an operating unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of commercial and military jet engines and components as well as integrated digital, electric power, and mechanical systems for aircraft. GE Aviation also has a global service network to support these offerings. For more information, visit us at www.ge.com/aviation.

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