“The interest level of buyers and the expiration of accelerated depreciation at the end of the year suggests a reasonably strong order intake in the second half of the year, particularly in the fourth quarter.”

In context

“rter, followed by even better operating margin and related earnings in the fourth quarter. Separately, we still expect to deliver 50 to 52 G700s this year. Look for about 16 in the third quarter and 23 to 25 in the fourth quarter. From an orders perspective, we had a respectable quarter at 0.9:1 book-to-bill in dollar terms. There is strong interest in a fair pipeline across the product mix. As I noted last quarter, bringing transactions to close has elongated somewhat, as there is some caution, while customers digest the impact of geopolitical events in general and U.S. presidential election in particular. The United States remains our strongest market, but the yield is improving. The Middle East shows very strong potential. And just very recently, we have seen some improvement in China. The interest level of buyers and the expiration of accelerated depreciation at the end of the year suggests a reasonably strong order intake in the second half of the year, particularly in the fourth quarter. We are pleased to have both G700 FAA and EASA certifications behind us. The Aerospace comparative revenue and earnings numbers in the quarter are very good by any reasonable standard, but still behind consensus, largely attributable to deliveries that did not make it to the wire. In summary, the Aerospace team had a very good quarter. It is handling the rapid increase in deliveries and revenue on a methodical and disciplined fashion. We look forward to a powerful second half with increasing revenue and earnings quarter-over-quarter as we forecasted at the end of last quarter. Moving to the defense business as a collective. We once again saw strong growth and good operating performance across the portfolio. Let me walk you through each segment in turn. First, Combat Systems. Combat Systems”