L-3 MAS announced today that its new Aerostructures and Aircraft Services Center of Excellence has been awarded a contract to design and manufacture two new pylons for Pratt & Whitney Canada's Boeing 747SP aircraft used to flight test development engines. One pylon will be used to test existing PW600 engine programs and the second to test future PurePower® PW800 engine programs. In addition to the design and manufacturing of the pylons, L-3 MAS will provide some of the key assembly tooling, ground support equipment and necessary systems to integrate the test pylon with the Boeing 747SP flying test bed.

This announcement follows previous awards to L-3 for a large pylon to be delivered later this year for testing existing PW500 and PW800 programs, as well as the test pylon to be used for the certification testing of the PurePower PW1524G engine being built by Pratt & Whitney.

"The pylon programs provide L-3 MAS with a great opportunity to showcase our aerostructures expertise and operational flexibility in support of Pratt & Whitney Canada and the aircraft OEMs using its engines," said Marc-André Duranceau, vice president of Aerostructures and Aircraft Services at L-3 MAS. "These contracts reflect our customers' confidence in our capabilities and enable us to fully utilize the resources of our recently created Aerostructures and Aircraft Services Center of Excellence. We have all the required competencies to become a key Tier 1 supplier in this market."

For the last 25 years, L-3 MAS has positioned itself as a leader in the MRO sector on military and commercial programs. Based on its depth of experience, L-3 MAS has diversified its activities into the aerostructures and aircraft services arena with a renewed focus on turnkey aircraft structures and modification solutions.