Leica Geosystems Awarded Sales Contract from Cessna Aircraft Company


Cessna purchases eight Leica laser trackers for on-demand quality assurance

Wixom, MI - December 11, 2006 - Leica Geosystems, a Hexagon Company, announced today Cessna Aircraft Company, a Textron (NYSE: TXT) company, has signed a sales contract for eight portable Leica CMM systems used for industrial measurement and inspection. The acquisition consists of four Leica LTD840 laser trackers, and four Leica LTD640 laser trackers. Cessna (Wichita, KS) is the world's largest manufacturer of general aviation airplanes. Leica Geosystemo's 3D coordinate measurement systems are used by manufacturers worldwide in the aerospace, automotive, and shipbuilding industries.

Cessna will add mobile, large-volume measurement capabilities to its production floor with the implementation of the Leica laser trackers. Cessna manufactures a broad array of aircraft from its world renowned business jets, to freight-hauling and passenger-hauling utility Caravans, to personal and small business single engine airplanes. Leica laser trackers will provide an overall quality solution for dimensional verification applications across Cessna's product lines.

"We are very pleased our laser tracking systems have been selected by Cessna for its multi-faceted quality assurance operations in North America," states Paul Evans, marketing manager for Leica Geosystems. "Our portable CMMs set the industry standard for precision data acquisition, and offer expandability for future metrology requirements in terms of wireless probing and high speed scanning. Delivering real-time quality assurance to aerospace shop floors around the world is our forte."

Leica laser tracking systems are used extensively for the construction of aerospace tools, precision alignment of large assemblies, the inspection of airplane production parts, part-mating operations, and more. The versatile Leica LTD840 laser tracker can be used to measure a full aircraft, or inspect a specific component of a large assembly.

The Leica LTD840 system can be upgraded with the unique Leica T-Probe, an armless and wireless probe providing touch-and-inspect capability with six degrees of freedom. The tracker is also fully compatible with the Leica T-Scan, a handheld high-speed hand scanner used to capture complex surfaces and contours of an aircraft or automobile. Leicao's LTD840 laser tracker delivers an ultra-fast measurement cycle for high point density (3,000 points/second) and a measurement range reaching a full 40m (131ft) when used with a corner cube reflector.

About Cessna Aircraft Company
Based on unit sales, Cessna Aircraft Company is the world's largest manufacturer of general aviation airplanes. In 2005, Cessna delivered 1,157 aircraft and reported revenues of about $3.5 billion. Since the company was originally established in 1927, more than 187,000 Cessna airplanes have been delivered to nearly every country in the world. The global fleet of more than 4,500 Citations is the largest fleet of business jets in the world. More information about Cessna Aircraft Company is available at www.cessna.com. Cessna is a Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) company.

About Leica Geosystems
Leica Geosystems, a Hexagon Company, is a global supplier of comprehensive hardware and software packages for the industrial metrology market. These products integrate with popular CAD programs, various build-and-inspect tools, and reverse engineering software. Using state-of-the-art laser technology, Leicao's laser trackers and theodolites make quality control, part mating, assembly and construction of large and small parts easier and more accurate than ever. Leica's U.S. headquarters is located at the Hexagon Metrology Precision Center in Wixom, Michigan. For more information about Leica Geosystem's metrology products and services, visit their web site at www.leica-geosystems.com/metrology, or call 248-449-9400.

About Hexagon Metrology
Hexagon Metrology serves the high precision measurement and inspection needs of Worldwide manufacturers with its extensive line of metrology hardware, software, accessories, and customer services. The company's name-brand portfolio of quality assurance products include Brown & Sharpe, Leica Geosystems, ROMER, Sheffield, PC-DMIS, DEA, Leitz, and TESA. Hexagon Metrology has an unrivaled installed base of more than 1.5 million handheld, stationary and portable measurement devices, and over 25,000 seats of PC-DMIS metrology software. The company is a subsidiary of Hexagon Measurement Technologies, a business unit of Hexagon AB (Nacka Strand, Sweden), a publicly-traded company (Stockholmsborsen: HEXA B). The Hexagon group consists of nearly 8,200 employees located in 30 countries. Call 1-800-426-1066 or visit www.hexagonmetrology.us for more information about Hexagon Metrology Inc. and its trusted brands.

Company Contact:
Hexagon Portable Metrology Group Contact: Paul Evans, Marketing Manager
(248) 449-9413, paul.evans@hexagonmetrology.com

Leica/Hexagon Metrology Press Contact: Belinda Jones, HiTech Marketing llc, (860) 399-1147, belinda.jones@hitechmarketing.com

Link to press release: http://hexagonmetrology.us/content/view/37/20/

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