Inglewood, Calif., March 1, 2002 - Foam Matrix, Inc. today announced it has received a 2002 Supplier Innovation Award from the Boeing Company's Phantom Works Division for developing low-cost lightweight wings with structural foam technology originally used to make surfboards. Phantom Works, the advanced research and development unit of Boeing, presented the prestigious award to Foam Matrix President Kent Sherwood at a formal ceremony held January 23, 2002 at the Boeing Long Beach Management Association, Long Beach, CA.

Photos accompanying this release are available online.

"Innovation is the main ingredient in everything we do at Foam Matrix," said Mr. Sherwood. "To be honored for this by Boeing's Phantom Works is a tribute to our people, who continue to demonstrate why we're in business."

Phantom Works' John P. Bishop, Director, Supplier Management and Procurement, said, "Foam Matrix earned this recognition for the innovative design and production of the wings for the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) program. The high-strength lightweight concept based on Foam Matrix technology provides an attractive alternative to conventional wing designs."

UCAV is a revolutionary joint DARPA/Air Force program developing a high-performance unmanned combat air vehicle whose primary mission will be to attack enemy air defense systems. This new concept is expected to drastically change modern air warfare.

Mr. Bishop noted that Foam Matrix is also developing a structural foam product to replicate the engine nacelle strake on the Air Force C-17 transport. The nacelle strake, a thin structure near the engine, controls air flow around the engine.

Recognizing Small Suppliers

Foam Matrix is the first Phantom Works supplier to receive the Supplier Innovation Award. The award program was initiated to recognize outstanding supplier innovations in solving aerospace challenges.

"Throughout the company, Boeing recognizes suppliers for good performance," says Mr. Bishop. "The traditional supplier-recognition process is tailored to companies with substantial track records for quality and on-time delivery. Our new innovation award recognizes companies who may not have built thousands of parts, but who we value for the quality and significance of their innovations."

Criteria for receiving the award fall into two general categories. One category focuses on ways to enhance a product with new technology, and the second on new uses for existing technology. In the case of UCAV, no one had thought of applying existing foam structure technology to reduce wing cost and weight.

"Innovations typically happen when somebody thinks outside the box," says Mr. Bishop. "This includes the supplier with the new idea and the Boeing engineer who recommended going with the supplier in the first place."

From Surfboards to Wings

Foam Matrix technology is the result of initial approaches to foam structures by the company's founder, Kent Sherwood, for making better recreational products like surfboards.

Sherwood soon recognized that the lightweight, strength, and cost-efficient qualities of the technology were ideal for aerospace. By the mid-1980s, the company was producing contoured structural foam parts for home-built aircraft. By 1988, Foam Matrix was molding foam cores for fins used on the Pegasus air-launched rocket, and a few years later had teamed with one the world's largest aerospace companies to produce composite surfaces for an important missile program.

Today, wings and other contoured control surfaces, such as those for the Boeing UCAV program, are the primary focus of Foam Matrix.

E Pluribus Unum

In wing production, the ribs, stringers, electrical conduit and other wing parts are machined into a single mold tool as part of the patented Foam Matrix CoreTM (FMC) System. The entire wing, including all integral parts, is molded to final shape as a single one-piece foam core.

After curing, the foam core is wrapped in composite fibers and returned to the FMC mold tool for resin injection. After a final cure, the wing is removed from the tool complete and ready for assembly to the aircraft.

Benefits of the FMC System include sharply reduced parts count, seamless construction, short production-cycle time, light weight and very low cost. The FMC System is highly reproducible, and this translates into high consistency of product quality, an essential ingredient in aerospace applications.

Foam Matrix, Inc.

Located in Inglewood, California, Foam Matrix Inc, an ISO 9000 certified company, is a leading supplier of wings for unmanned aircraft. Foam Matrix develops high quality, cost-efficient composite structural core systems for a variety of aerospace and commercial applications. The company's patented FMC-System produces structural core systems that can be designed to meet a customer's integration, performance and cost requirements.