Wichita, KS--January 29, 2014 --Lee Aerospace, Inc. is back. After 14 years as part of the Triumph Group, Inc., the Wichita, Kansas-based aircraft window, sheet metal and composite structure operation known since 2000 as Triumph Aerospace Systems-WIchita was re-acquired by the firms founder and current president, Jim Lee, on January 17, 2014. The new entity has revived its original brand and will again be known as Lee Aerospace, Inc.

The opportunity to re-acquire the company presented itself late last year and we are pleased to announce that Lee Aerospace has returned after 14 years of being part of the Triumph family, said Jim Lee, president. We are excited to once again be a locally-owned and operated company serving local OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and others around the world.

Being part of Triumph was a great learning experience and we are grateful to the Triumph Group for the support and foundation they provided as we grew the business from a producer of aircraft transparencies to include aerostructures and assemblies, composite manufacturing and aftermarket sales, as well.

The new Lee Aerospace is projecting a solid year in 2014 and expects to increase its employment in the coming months. This is an exciting time for us, Lee continued. We anticipate significant growth in employment and strong sales performance as we add new products and begin deliveries of large aircraft assemblies to Viking Air Limited, a first tier original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

We are extremely pleased to have been chosen by Viking to supply them with fuselage sections for the Viking Twin Otter 400. We began work on this project during mid-year 2013 and are proud to announce that, last weekend, we shipped the first of what we expect will be many fuselage sections to their assembly location in Calgary, Alberta.

With more than 800 built, Twin Otters can be found around the world in jungles, deserts, mountains, and polar regions-- anywhere rugged reliability and short-take-off-and-landing are required. Adding to that versatility the Twin Otter can be fitted with wheels, skis or floats. In 2001, it was deemed the only aircraft capable of performing a South Pole evacuation flight of a critical patient in the harsh -60C conditions. Lee Aerospace builds the fuselage assemblies for the Viking 400 version.

Originally founded in 1989, Lee Aerospace currently occupies facilities totaling more than 146,000-square feet at 9323 E. 34th Street North and employs more than 200. During its 14 years as a Triumph Group company it increased employment by more than 300% and revenues by 350%. In addition to Viking, Lee Aerospace looks forward to continuing our great working relationships with Wichita-based manufacturers Bombardier Learjet, Beechcraft, Cessna, and Spirit AeroSystems, as well as non-local airframers Honda, Cirrus, and Gulfstream, Lee concluded. Further information can be obtained by visiting the Lee Aerospace website at http://www.leeaerospace.com or calling 316-636-9200.

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Lee Aerospace Re-Acquires Triumph Aerospace Systems-Wichita, Eyes New Opportunities

WorldView-3 spacecraft to enhance Longmont firm's high-resolution imagery capabilities

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has completed assembly of its WorldView-3, the fourth remote-sensing satellite it has built for DigitalGlobe, scheduled to launch this summer from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The WorldView-3 spacecraft is billed by Ball Aerospace as the first multi-payload, super-spectral high resolution commercial satellite for Earth observations and "advanced geospatial solutions."

Ball, in addition to the satellite bus, will provide an atmospheric instrument that it calls CAVIS - Cloud, Aerosol, Water Vapor, Ice, Snow.

CAVIS, integrated with the spacecraft, will monitor the atmosphere and provide correction data to enhance WorldView-3's imagery when it documents Earth features through dust, haze or other things that might impair visibility.

DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont but moving to Westminster next year, claims to own and operate one of the most agile and sophisticated collections of high-resolution commercial Earth imaging satellites in the world, capable of collecting more than 1 billion square kilometers of high-quality imagery every year.

WorldView-3 is described by Ball Aerospace as building on WorldView-2 and WorldView-1 technology by enhancing the satellite's control moment gyroscopes, which reorient a satellite over a targeted area in 4-to-5 seconds, compared to the 30-to-45 seconds required for traditional reaction wheels.

WorldView-3 utilizes the Ball Configurable Platform BCP 5000 spacecraft, which is designed to handle the next-generation optical and synthetic aperture radar remote sensing payloads, and is currently meeting or exceeding all its performance specifications on the WorldView-2 satellite.

Companies 'have grown up together'

For Jeff Dierks, Ball Aerospace program manager for WorldView-3 and its predecessor, WorldView-2, the next step in its partnership with DigitalGlobe only further cements what has been a rich relationship since the early 1990s.

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Ball Aerospace satellite readied for launch by DigitalGlobe