Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney said it plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs in Connecticut by 2011, transferring engine repair work to the Southeastern state of Georgia and Asia in a cost-cutting initiative.

This subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. (UTX) will close down its Cheshire, Connecticut, plant by early 2011. From the second quarter of 2010, it will begin shifting some operations from the East Hartford facility to Columbus, Georgia, Singapore and Japan. Pratt & Whitney, which is suffering due to sagging demand from airlines, employs 35,000 workers worldwide, with 11,000 in Connecticut.

The company rejected an offer that the Machinists union valued at more than $80 million in wage and other concessions and a state plan proposing $100 million in economic assistance over five years. Pratt & Whitney has vastly scaled back operations in the state since the 1960s, when more than 20,000 workers were employed.

Pratt

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Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT), the nation's largest defense contractor, unveiled yesterday the carrier variant of the F-35 fighter plane. The F-35 variant, known as F-35C Lightning II, is the first-ever stealth fighter added the U.S. Navy's arsenal.

Lockheed Martin is focusing on F-35 as its primary growth driver in the Aeronautics segment to offset the loss of F-22. The Senate recently voted to stop production of the F-22 plane, putting it as too advanced for the recent trend of low-intensity warfare.

Subsequent to the end of the second quarter of 2009, Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics segmental order backlog was $27.9 billion. The F-35 is slated to replace the F-16 and A-10 fleets. As per media reports, the Pentagon will have to procure about 3,000 F-35 variants over the coming decade for the purpose. The F-35 has three variants, of which two of them are land based differing on the take-off and

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Before the markets opened today, the Big Daddy among defense contractors, Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) reported second quarter earnings of $734 million or EPS of $1.88, as compared to earnings of $882 million or EPS of $2.15 in the year-ago quarter. Although EPS fell by $0.27 year-over-year, $0.19 is attributed to pension adjustments. Pension accounting adjustment negated $115 million from the quarter while in the year-ago quarter this adjustment added $32 million to earnings. The spike in pension liability was due to the lower value of the company retiree fund. However, the results still beat the consensus EPS estimate of $1.81 by a wide margin. On the revenue front, with $11.2 billion the company beat the year-ago result of $11 billion. This was in line with the consensus estimate of $11.14 billion.   The downside in EPS year-over-year came from higher pension liability coupled with lower earnings year-over-year ...

Herley Industries (HRLY) designs, developments, and manufactures microwave technology solutions for the defense, aerospace, and medical industries on a global basis. Herley’s products include telemetry systems, command and control systems, transponders, flight termination receiver, HF communications and IFF interrogators, high power amplifier, microwave integrated circuits, high/low power integrated assembly, solid state receiver protector, digitally tuned oscillators, and simulation equipment, as well as scientific products and medical products, such as single modules and rack mounted amplifiers.

The company sells its products to defense prime contractors, original equipment manufacturers, research institutions, and universities in commercial markets, as well as to the United States and foreign governments. Just last week, Herley won a $2.4 million from the U.S. Air Force to supply radar components for the F-16 fighter jet. That comes on the heels of more than $3.5 million in contracts the Pennsylvania-based company won earlier in September. Herley, which was founded in

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If you still haven't put any defense and aerospace stocks in your portfolio, you should seriously consider doing so before October. There are plenty of these 'war' stocks to choose from including ones that pay high yields. Here are some that you may want to site your scopes on and possibly pull the trigger. All of these have market caps over $1 billion.Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) manufactures and markets aerospace and defense products and ammunition. The stock has a PE of 16, and a PEG of 1.56.Boeing (BA) makes and markets jets, military aircraft, missile defense systems, satellites, and launch systems. The stock has a PE of 11, a PEG of 0.83, and pays a yield of 2.8%.CAE Inc. (CGT) makes and markets simulation equipment and services to the civil aviation industry, military organizations, and defense organizations. The ...