Rockwell Collins today (Tuesday) reported sales increased 20-percent and profits grew in its third quarter. President and C-E-O Clay Jones told investors in an internet webcast this morning that the Cedar Rapids based avionics maker has a couple big contracts in the works.In June Boeing chose Rockwell Collins to supply pilot controls for its new 7-e-7 family of jets, which brings expected revenues from that program to about seven and-a-half Billion dollars. Chief Financial officer Larry Erickson ran down bottom-line figures in the news conference, which was streamed on the internet Tuesday morning. Sales for third-quarter of the company’s 2004 fiscal year were 744-Million, up 20-percent from last year’s third-quarter sales of 620-Million. CEO Clay Jones said Boeing’s already booked orders for 62 of the new aircraft and collected deposits from twenty other airline customers. He calls it a “pretty good start” for a program promising deliveries of the product in 2008. As part of a team led by General Dynamics, Rockwell will supply and demonstrate low-power, lightweight radios for the U.S. Army’s joint tactical radio systems program, a 16-year program that has the potential to earn the Iowa company two-Billion dollars. Jones says the deals clearly establish Rockwell Collins as a “major player” in supplying military communications, and part of transforming the war-fighting capabilities of our armed forces over the next two decades. Jones says with the aviation industry’s profitability recovering, income should grow from the company’s commercial and airline customers despite the high price of jet fuel.
