L-3 to work on U.S. Navy landing craft

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NEW YORK, April 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy has given an L-3 Communications division two contracts to support its service life extension program for air-cushioned landing craft.

The fixed-price contracts to L-3 Unidyne for the fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012 program are worth a of $52 million. If provisions for additional work are exercised, the awards could be worth as much as $64 million.

"This is a significant competitive new business win for us -- the L-3 team is extremely pleased to be selected to upgrade the U.S. Navy's amphibious connectors," said John Greene, president of L-3's Marine Service Sector.

"Having already successfully completed 15 LCAC SLEP availabilities it is tremendously gratifying to again be able to assist in breathing new life into these vital ship-to-shore mobilization assets."

Work to be performed by L-3 includes the repair and upgrades, replacement of gas turbine engines, installation of new, integrated C4N equipment and select craft alterations.

The life-extension work will give the craft another decade of operational use, increasing the crafts' life expectancy to 30 years.