B-1 Lancer navigation system gets facelift
NewsApril 11, 2012
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. The Air Force awarded Boeing a $55.3 million contract to upgrade the B-1 Lancer aircraft?s navigation system a new ring laser gyro system.
"We are no longer using a spinning mass gyro," says Rick Greenwell, B-1 program director for Boeing. "The new inertial navigation system uses a ring laser gyro with no moving parts to wear out and repair.”
Under the contract, Boeing engineers will provide hardware modification kits and perform the retrofits at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, and Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, S.D. Initial aircraft modification is slated to begin next year and be finished by mid-2015.
Development program flight tests were finished on July 13, 2011. Boeing will begin purchasing the upgrade kits right away.
