“We now expect to deliver 27 aircraft in the third quarter, with a rapid increase in the fourth quarter deliveries.”

In context

“cipating to a lesser degree. The 700 flight test and certification program continues to progress. The aircraft design, manufacturing and the overall program are very mature. However, we now target certification in the fourth quarter and see no major obstacles in our path. To give you a little more insight, we will complete our FAA Type Inspection Authorization in September. This is a flying we are required to do pursuant to FAA requirement and plan. When we are finished, the FAA will fly some confirmatory flight tests to verify portions of our results. That will be followed by a brief period of paper submission, followed by FAA review. As most of you know, we had planned to deliver considerable number of G700s in the third and fourth quarters. That has now flipped into the fourth quarter. We now expect to deliver 27 aircraft in the third quarter, with a rapid increase in the fourth quarter deliveries. In short, we are making good progress under difficult circumstances. However, we expect to deliver 5 to 6 fewer aircraft than the 145 we forecast at the beginning of the year. On the other hand, we expect more service revenue than initially anticipated. I’ll have more on this later in my remarks. Next, Combat Systems. Combat had revenue of $1.92 billion, up a stunning 15.5% over the year-ago quarter with growth in each of the business units. Earnings of $251 million are up 2.4%. Margins at 13% represent a 170 basis-point reduction over the year-ago quarter. So, we saw powerful revenue performance, coupled with more modest operating margin, in large part attributable to mix. The increase in revenue came from international vehicle programs at both Land Systems and European Land Systems. OTS”