AH-1W Goes GPS

At this year’s openhouse at Kueijen Army Aviation Base, an AH-1W pilot pointed to a green fairing in front of the AH-1W’s windshield and, without being asked by anybody else, told everybody that it was a GPS antenna just added to the helicopter.  Today I found the following FMS contract and I wonder if the antenna was fitted as part of the contract.

 (Defenselink — 16 November 2004) Honeywell International Inc., Clearwater, Fla., is being awarded a $5,286,090 firm fixed price contract modification. This action is to exercise options to purchase sixty-nine AH-1W Foreign Military Sales to Taiwan EGI Production Units, FMS Repayable, Recurring Hardware and EGI Mounts for the Tri-Service Embedded Global Positioning System /Inertial Navigation System Office. This effort supports foreign military sale to Taiwan. Total funds have been obligated. This work will be complete by October 2006. The Headquarters Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-99-C-2040, P00220).