VMETRO data recorders selected by Lockheed Martin for F-35 Lightning II development

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has awarded VMETRO Inc. a contract to supply Vortex Data Recording systems to support Lockheed Martin’s work on the F-35 Lightning II test laboratory. The Data Recording systems are based on VMETRO’s Vortex VME Open Data Recording platform. The Vortex system will be incorporated into Lockheed Martin’s instrumentation and test plan for Lightning II. The award value exceeds $660,000. Delivery will occur in 2008.

“The systems Lockheed Martin is developing for the U.S. military and F-35 international partners benefit from optimizing commonality and reducing operations and support costs, which opens the door for innovative technologies from businesses like ours,” said Jim Gerberman, President of VMETRO, Inc. “Lockheed Martin constantly seeks out business innovators with technologies that support its goal of achieving affordability in ongoing development efforts.”

The F-35 Lightning II Program (also known as the Joint Strike Fighter Program) is the Department of Defense's focal point for defining affordable next-generation strike aircraft weapon systems for the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and our allies. The F-35 is the next generation strike fighter bringing cutting-edge technologies to the battlespace of the future. The aircraft’s advanced stealth, integrated avionics, autonomic logistics, propulsion systems and firepower will ensure that the F-35 is the most affordable, lethal, supportable and survivable aircraft ever to be used by so many war fighters across the globe.

The System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase of the F-35 JSF program started with the signing of the SDD contract in October 2001. First flight occurred in 2006. Delivery of production aircraft is scheduled to begin in 2010. During the SDD phase, 19 aircraft (13 flying test aircraft and 6 ground-test aircraft) will be produced and tested for safety and effectiveness, and to verify the product the Lockheed Martin F-35 team proposed. The JSF program is slated to produce a total of 2,593 aircraft for the United States' and United Kingdom's armed forces, and as many as 2,000 additional F-35s for other allied nations.

About VMETRO
VMETRO [OSE: VME] provides commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) board- and system-level embedded computer products from development to deployment for applications in Aerospace & Defense, Industrial, Communications, Medical, Enterprise Computing and Network Storage. Our products offer the highest levels of performance, innovation and reliability by applying state-of-the-art technology within the framework of well established industry standards.

VMETRO is a leading supplier of 1) Embedded Computing – ruggedized and commercial grade high-performance Digital Signal Processing and FPGA Processing solutions, Analog, Digital and Fiber-Optic I/O, and Buffer Memory Nodes 2) Data Recorders & Storage – ruggedized and commercial grade real-time long-endurance recording, playback and analysis systems for high-speed sensor data 3) Protocol & Bus Analyzers – debug, validation and analysis tools for testing computer systems and 4) Network Storage devices - solid-state non-volatile cards designed to increase performance and maintain reliability in server and storage appliances.

For more information, please visit www.vmetro.com.