Hitting The Target : Vista Controls Designs Innovative Military Equipment From Robotic Autoloader to See-Through Helmet
For a company that designs and manufactures state-of-the-art weapons systems for the military, the name is nicely ambiguous--Vista Controls Corp.
In fact, there is not much about the small research and development company that draws attention to it. Vista would be just another amorphous company tucked away among the dozens of nondescript industrial complexes sprinkled in the Santa Clarita Valley were it not for the 25-ton armored vehicle belonging to the Army parked in the company’s warehouse.
An Army self-propelled artillery gun, called the M109H Paladin, was loaned to Vista while the company works on a $700,000 Army contract to perfect a system that automatically loads the 96-pound 155-mm shells and powder bags fired by the weapon. The current loading system requires a soldier to physically lift the round from an ammunition rack. The Army is expected to renew the Vista contract later this year.
“I get gawks and stares whenever I drive this thing around here. People stop and look, but then get out of the way real quick,” said Vista engineer George Wiltsey, who is working on this and other projects for the Army.
Wiltsey and other Vista engineers have been working on this “robotic autoloader” since 1991. The Paladin is named after the lead character in the 1950s television Western “Have Gun Will Travel.”
The artillery project that Vista officials are working on uses a computerized prototype to transfer an artillery round from a storage rack to the gun’s breech and load a powder charge automatically. It enables a Paladin crew to fire up to 11 rounds per minute before driving to another position on the battlefield.
The privately owned company, founded in 1985, has 45 employees and had sales of $6.5 million in 1993, said Mike Nemecheck, Vista military products marketing executive. He declined to reveal earnings for last year but said the company is profitable and expects sales to increase to $8 million in 1994.
Ron Rambin, who founded the company and is president and CEO, owns more than 50% of the company and employees own most of the remaining shares.
Over the years, more than 90% of the company’s revenues have come from military contracts. In addition to contracts it has received from the Army, Marines, Navy and NASA, Vista has also been a subcontractor on other defense projects for General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Rockwell and other defense contractors.
Currently, most of Vista’s revenues come from a circuit board designed by the company’s engineers for use in the Army’s new M1A2 Abrams battle tank. The board is used in the tank’s fire control processor to stabilize the turret and 120-mm gun, enabling the gunner to fire accurately, while the tank rumbles along at 40 m.p.h.
“Our board is crucial to the tank’s shoot-on-the-run ability. We designed the board for General Dynamics Land Systems, which built the Abrams tank,” said Nemecheck.
Vista’s contract with General Dynamics for the board is worth $17.5 million and is the company’s largest military project to date. The six-year contract expires in 1995.
Nemecheck, a commander in the Navy Reserve, joined Vista last July, after working as a marketing manager for Whittaker Electronics Systems in Simi Valley for several years. He admits to being a duck out of water when working on high-tech projects for Army armored vehicles.
Nemecheck is the executive officer of a reserve unit in Long Beach that maintains and repairs Navy ships. In contrast to the state-of-the-art weapons systems that Vista is developing for the Army, Nemecheck described his Navy Reserve job as a “manager in a very low-tech garage for ships.”
“I’m really more at home with mechanical things like turbines and pumps, but I’m also a salesman who’s been around high-tech products,” he said.
Wiltsey is presently supervising a team of Vista engineers who are working on a See-Thru Armor Helmet that promises to give the crews of U.S. armored vehicles a significant advantage on the battlefield. The helmet, which will also have night-vision capability, will give a tank crew member, for instance, 360-degree vision outside the tank while riding inside.
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The helmet, which was demonstrated at an Assn. of the United States Army show in Washington last October, uses four small video cameras mounted outside the tank. Using computers and other high-tech equipment, the cameras are integrated with a helmet that features an opaque screen that can be pulled down in front of a soldier’s face.
The soldier “sees through” the tank by viewing outside scenes in color on the opaque screen, while still being able to view the tank’s control panels in front of him. The operator chooses which area he wants to view outside the tank simply by turning his head in that direction. Gyros inside the helmet activate the outside cameras. Currently, crew members can see what is outside their vehicle only by opening a hatch and looking out and exposing themselves to enemy fire.
Vista has no government funding yet for the helmet project and has paid for most of its research and development costs, which have totaled about $500,000 to date, Wiltsey said. Eventually, the company hopes to sell the helmets to the military for about $25,000 each.
“This is new technology for an entirely new generation of armored vehicles that haven’t been built yet. This is an example of what we do best here. We integrate existing technology into a defense project designed to work in a very specific way,” Wiltsey said.
He said Vista avoids projects for exotic weapons systems, which can be constraining and money losers for the firm. “As a small company, we’re trying to carve out a niche with the military. It’s a lower-risk effort for us if we stick with what we know and do best,” Wiltsey said.
