Sacramento Firm Reports Successful Supersonic Flight of New Unmanned Aircraft

Sacramento CA - Composite Engineering Inc (CEi) announced today the recent successful flight demonstration of their newest unmanned aerial target system.  The new aircraft, called the BQM-167X accomplished sustained supersonic flight at the US Navy Pt. Mugu Test Range on January 31, 2008.  The flight was part of a demonstration contract awarded to CEi by the US Navy in September of 2006 for an advanced high performance aerial target system capable of very high subsonic low altitude performance.  

Designed and manufactured by CEi at their Sacramento Ca. facility, the aircraft is propelled by a Microturbo turbojet engine from their Grand Prairie Texas facility and an avionics suite manufactured by Microsystems, a Herley Industries company located in Ft Walton Beach Florida.

Aerial targets are utilized by armed forces around the world for weapons training and weapons testing purposes.  They provide threat representative emulation of enemy aircraft and missile threats to armed forces.  The company currently provides the high performance BQM-167A aerial target system to the US Air Force for all subscale target missions at Tyndall AFB Florida.

President, Mrs. Amy Fournier said about the flight:
"We are proud of the technical accomplishments of our team and partners with this new platform.  It represents yet another step in our evolution to provide an entire suite of high performance threat representative target systems around the globe. "

With several demonstration flights already completed, the demonstration contract is scheduled to complete by the end of the first quarter 2008. CEi corporate headquarters is located in Roseville, CA., and the company accomplishes manufacturing activities at their Sacramento production facilities.

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