USAF grants Composite Engineering a $18mn contract for BQM-167A Aerial Targets.

The contract will be performed by the Kratos Unmanned Systems Division, comprised of CEi and Micro Systems, Inc. (MSI):

CEi, located in Sacramento, CA, will lead the effort and provide high performance aerial targets and technical support.

MSI, located in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, will supply the majority of the high performance avionics utilized on the targets to include critical command / control and flight computer systems.

CEi target systems are used as high fidelity enemy threat surrogates, simulating performance characteristics of certain threat aircraft and missiles, and are utilized by U.S. and allied militaries around the globe for weapons testing and training requirements. Kratos is a leading provider of high performance unmanned aerial target systems, unmanned aerial ground and sea platforms, command, control, avionics control, and termination systems.

Jerry Beaman, President of Kratos' Unmanned Systems Division, said, "We are proud that the Air Force is continuing our partnership by exercising this option for an additional production lot. It is an honor to provide products and services that enable the Aerial Targets Program Office to provide reliable threat representative targets and support that helps hone the skills of our military pilots and aircrew."

The primary role of the BQM-167A is to provide U.S. Air Force aviators with the most realistic and comprehensive end-to-end weapons-release training. With an industry-leading fuel capacity of 115 U.S. gallons, the BQM-167A's operation time-on-station is more than double that of the legacy platform it replaced. The longer available flight time means more presentations per launch, significantly reducing the target's cost of ownership.

The versatile design of the BQM-167A supports various mission requirements by accepting a wide array of internal and external payloads including smoke oil, scoring (vector and scalar), Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF), passive and active radar augmentation, electronic countermeasures, infrared (IR) augmentation (plume pods), and internally stored chaff and flares.