Arizona defense industry looks to the past and future

Arizona is known as the Copper State, an appellation as true today as it was when the state was admitted into the union in 1912. Indeed, the state’s representatives are on the leading edge of efforts to ban the penny, because, contrary to popular belief, there is more copper in a nickel than in a one-cent piece. Nowadays, however, the state’s economy does not depend on mining, nor do local businesses cocern themselves much with minor coinage. Local defense and homeland security firms are riding tall in the saddle these days, with “one foot in the future and the other in the past,” as the Arizona Republic puts it. Not only do local contractors stand to make millions out of new missile defense projects, they are also deeply involved in supporting older products that would likely be saved if incoming Democrats begin trimming defense budgets.

Lucrative contracts include:

BULLETS

—Tucson- and Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Missile Systems and Chandler- and Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences are major players in the $100 billion ballistic missile defense program. Whle Raytheon makes the “kill vehicles” that destroy incoming missiles, Orbital Sciences makes the rockets that propel them into space

—Honeywell Aerospace in Phoenix has a contract to provide cockpit avionics for the $200 billion fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter planes intended to replace aging Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft

—Mesa- and Edina, Minnesota-based ATK Gun Systems hopes to provide the cannons for the new armored vehicles that will replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicles under the Army’s $120 billion future combat systems program

—General Dynamics Corp.’s C4 Systems unit in Scottsdale is developing the Future Force Warrior, a high-tech communication system that allows soldiers to use a helmet-mounted computer screen to access maps, mission plans, and the locations of enemy and friendly troops.

—Ionatron Inc. in Tucson is working on new laser weapons that one day may be deployed on stealth warplanes and used by future force warriors.

END BULLETS

According to Richard Hardy, a program analyst for the Defense Department, defense spending shows no sign of slowing down, despite the incoming Democratic majority. Indeed, the government will spend $300 billion on defense work this year, up from $270 billion in 2005, but even if spending were to drop precipitously, experts say, Arizona would continue to reap the benefits of long-standing contracts. Boeing’s Mesa office, for example, would still earn about $1 billion a year reconditioning and upgrading the Apache helicopters being used in the wars in the Middle East, and ATK’s Mesa office would continue similar work for the cannons used on Apache helicopters and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

-read more in Max Jarman’s and Chad Graham’s Arizona Republic report